


Break it Down (aka The Adventures of Mac and Weevil)

by sowell



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-25
Packaged: 2017-12-13 00:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sowell/pseuds/sowell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Veronica tries to solve the case of a missing term paper and drags Logan along for the ride. Elsewhere, Mac and Weevil battle it out in an elevator.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

In general, Mac has great feelings of affection for Veronica Mars. On any normal day she’d prefer a few hours of Veronica’s quips over…well, pretty much anyone else in Neptune. Which is why she should be taken very, very seriously when she says that, at the moment, she wants to  _kill_  the girl in question.

"Veronica, I’m going to  _kill_ you for this."

"Mac. If you survived Butters at Alterna-Prom, dealing with Clive will be a piece of cake."

"You’re not the one he’ll be making tongue-gestures at."

"That’s disturbing."

"You have no idea."

"Hear me out: Clive’s dad works for university housing. Think of the connections! You and I could be reaping the benefits of this job for years to come,  _and_ he’s paying a fee. C’mon, take one for the team, tiger! Besides, maybe last Saturday was just an off night for him. Give the guy a chance – he may surprise you."

"He had a thirty minute conversation with my breasts, and then he tried to grope me in the parking lot. He can keep the rest of his surprises to himself, thanks."

"Grabby hands aside, his roommate stole the disk with his midterm essay on it, and the assignment is due tomorrow. He asked me to find proof the roommate did it so he doesn’t fail out of the class."

"If he’s too stupid to save a backup copy, then I’d say his failing is a foregone conclusion."

"Apparently his backup copy was erased as well. He thinks his roommate Mark is trying to pass off the paper as his own. They've both been competing for the top spot in English Lit. I just need you to break into the roommate’s computer and look around, see what you can find. One hour of your time. I swear."

Silence.

"One hour of your time and…five percent of the fee?"

"Fifteen."

"Ten, and I’ll throw in a free tune-up from Weevil’s uncle’s shop."

"Promise to never call me tiger again, and we have a deal."

"I think I can make that promise. The roommate will only be gone until eight tonight. Give me a call from the lobby when you’re here and I’ll have them buzz you in."

Money, and her car: her two weak spots. Which is how she ended up here, loitering outside Hearst dorm security and cursing Veronica Mars on her first free afternoon in a month. She punches Veronica’s number into her phone.

"I’m here," she grits. "That computer better be ready and waiting the second I step off the elevator, and Clive Cressley better be nowhere near it."

Veronica just laughs and hangs up. Mac silently stews her way into the elevator, still debating whether another nauseously awkward encounter with Clive is really worth a free tune-up. She’s watching the doors slide shut with a glum sense of fatality when someone sticks a dusty black, booted foot inside. The doors slide open creakily, and Weevil Navarro saunters in. He pushes the button for Veronica’s floor and leans back against the metallic wall, arms crossed. The elevator shrinks to about the size of a sardine can.

He doesn’t recognize her – that’s immediately clear. His eyes pass over her jeans-and-t-shirt clad persona in a manner that’s somehow both bored and menacing at the same time. It’s a neat trick, Mac has to admit. Then he sighs in displeasure, re-settles himself against the wall, and stares at the doors as they begin to move upward.

It doesn’t surprise her; she’s never been particularly memorable, barring her brief, hellish fifteen minutes of fame after Beaver died. She doesn’t really want to rehash her study sessions with Weevil, if only because they summon up the memory of a grinning Cassidy Casablancas. But still…she spent endless hours of her own free time trying to force-feed knowledge into his stubbornly unresponsive brain. That deserves a little recognition. On the other hand, it’s not like he technically benefited from it. Which reminds her…

"I thought you were in jail." Weevil’s eyes snap to her. Whoops. Don’t poke the bear.

"I was. Now I’m not. What’s it to you, girl?"

"Nothing…except I spent half of finals week trying to save your algebra grade. I was a little pissed when Lamb dragged you out before my time paid off." Her voice sounds calm to her own ears, but she’s wishing with all her might that she hadn’t opened her mouth. The truth is, Weevil Navarro is a little scary, and she was a hell of a lot more comfortable before that dark gaze was focused on her.

Weevil’s eyes narrow. "Veronica’s friend, right? The math girl. Can I assume you’re here because little miss blonde pain-in-the-ass summoned you?"

Mac grimaces. "Of course. You?"

Weevil blows out an aggravated breath. "Yup."

"Fun."

"Yup."

Stifling silence. Mac watches the numbers light up as the elevator crawls to the top floor. Floor 3. Floor 4.  _God, how slow can an elevator possibly move?_ Floor 5, 6….

The elevator lurches, lights flickering, and Mac goes stumbling into Weevil’s leather-clad shoulder. Their transport slowly shudders to a stop, mid-floor, and the lights dim and blink off, bathing them in the orangey-yellow emergency bulbs. No. _Freaking_. Way. Weevil glares at her like she and the elevator are in cahoots to piss him off.

Yup. Veronica Mars –  _dead._


	2. Chapter 1

"I thought college was supposed to be fun," Logan grumbles, bouncing a tennis ball off the base of the top bunk. He’s sprawled on her mattress, lean and relaxed in his t-shirt and jeans, and he looks a little too welcoming for Veronica’s peace of mind. She fights the urge to go join him on the bed.

"You know you’re not actually a student here, right?" she asks, quirking an eyebrow.

Clive Cressley knocks three times and pokes his disheveled blonde head in the room. "Room’s all yours, PI Princess. Search away," he says, his radio-announcer voice bizarrely incongruous with his skinny, sweater-tying, preppy persona. His Nordically pale features turn up at her in a smarmy semblance of a smile, and a shudder rolls off of Veronica’s shoulders. Something about him rubs her the wrong way, and even attempting to be nice to him starts an ache right between her eyes.

She doesn’t crack a smile at the playful moniker he tosses out. "Sounds good. My computer guru is on the way up as we speak."

"Computer guru?"

"I figured we’d poke around Mark’s computer while he’s gone, see what turns up. In fact, I think you know Mac," she says innocently. "You must’ve met her at that party last Saturday. Short, cute, dyed hair…. Ring a bell?"

His face pales. "Uh…yeah. I remember," he mutters, and beats a hasty retreat. Veronica watches him go, amused. Wrathful Mac is indeed awesome to behold.

Logan stops his game of bounce-and-catch. "You went to a party and didn’t invite me? And here I thought we had come to some sort of understanding."

"Hearst-only event. No crazy townies allowed."

"Not even the wastrel sons of disgraced movie stars?" He holds her gaze for a minute, eyes light. Her gut clenches in an involuntary pang of sympathy. Manipulative ass. The realization doesn’t stop her chest from tightening; it doesn’t stop her from wanting to put her arms around him and squeeze until all his pain is squeezed out. She gives up the fight altogether and crawls onto her bed next to him. He turns to mirror her pose and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, lightly brushing her cheek. Her whole spine prickles in response.

"Are you keeping tabs on me?" she asks softly.

"Please let someone kill me before I ever get that bored."

"Your secret’s out. I know you follow me around, Echolls."

"Your self-absorption knows no bounds. It’s kinda cute on you, though."

She wonders if he’s going to kiss her. His eyes are traveling all over her face, and he’s moved his hand from her cheek to her shoulder, stroking lightly. Since graduation they’ve been tiptoeing along a shaky balance beam of desperate make-out sessions and determined avoidance.  _I need to take it slow_ , she pleaded with him. He told her in the gentlest, most intimate of voices that he would always be there for whatever she needed. And she convinced herself they would each be able to hold up their ends of the bargain this time, because the solace of his body and his voice and his eyes was worth the lie.

But lately he’s been like a racehorse kicking at the stall. He wants a commitment that she can’t give him; he wants a promise that if he starts to drown again, she’ll either pull him out of the surf or go down with the ship. She wants to reassure him, but the words keep sticking in her throat.

She can feel the walls of this non-relationship closing in on her, and ninety-nine percent of the time she’s terrified. And then there are days like today, when he’s sober and smiling and hasn’t said anything too inappropriate or abrasive yet, when he spends all day in her bedroom and tracks her every movement like he’d be content to do nothing else for the rest of his life. And when things are like this, the thought of pushing him away gives her a choking feeling that’s worse than the shrinking walls.

Right now, she’s just thankful that he’s alive and in one piece. She moves to close the distance between their bodies just as Wallace sticks his head through the door.

"Hey superfly, what’s this emergency case I’m needed for? I got midterms too, y’know?"

Veronica rolls off the bed, shaking off disappointment, and Logan drops back down, defeated for the moment. "What we have is a time-sensitive assignment gone mysteriously missing. Roommate is the suspect. We have until eight to search the room for evidence."

Wallace rubs his hands together. "Please tell me we’re searching the room of the fine ass dancer in 805."

Veronica grins. "’Fraid not. It’s gonna be guy-on-guy today, you lucky boy. Except for me and Mac. Which reminds me," she frowns at her watch, "where’s Mac? She called me from downstairs, like, ten minutes ago."

Wallace grimaces. "I don’t know where Mac is, but you can find me in the bathroom for the rest of the night, trying to scrub that guy-on-guy comment out of my brain."

Veronica dials Mac’s cell. "This is seriously weird. I just talked to her." Her suspicion kicks up a notch when her call goes directly into Mac’s voicemail. "I guess we can search manually and then do the computer when Mac gets here."

"You going old school on me, Nancy Drew?"

"Adaptability, Wallace. It’s all part of the biz."

*****

"Try your cell phone," Weevil commands. "Maybe there’s service." In the dim emergency lighting he’s striped orange and black like a tiger, and he’s prowling the confined space in a way that does nothing to hinder the resemblance.

Mac waves her cell phone. "Don’t you think I already looked?"

"Aw, this is not happening," Weevil groans. "I am not stuck in an elevator with the algebra queen. Not today of all days, man."

Mac barely refrains from snapping that she’d rather be stuck in an elevator with two hundred cockroaches than the unreasonable, hostile, mathematically moronic ex-leader of the PCH motorcycle gang. She calmly opens the emergency panel and picks up the phone, holding Weevil’s gaze. It only takes a couple seconds to connect.

"Emergency maintenance."

"Yeah, I’d like to report a problem with the elevator in East Lomita Hall. We’re stuck in here in between floors."

"How many passengers are there?"

"Two."

"Are there any injuries?" The woman on the other end of the line sounds impossibly bored, and Mac wants to offer to trade places with her.

"No, but…."

"Ok, sit tight. We’ll get a maintenance crew out as soon as possible. It’s probably just a minor malfunction."

"Thank God," Mac drawls. "I feel so much better." She locks eyes with Weevil. "Hurry."

"What’d they say?" Weevil pounces on her the second she hangs up.

"They’re sending a crew."

"Screw that," he says in disbelief. "I’ll rip these goddamn doors open myself."

Mac starts to laugh. "Those doors are doubled layered steel. Good luck. It could actually be kind of funny to watch you try."

"You  _would_  know that," he says glumly, and slides down to the floor against the far wall.

She reluctantly follows suit, because there’s really nothing else to do. She does her best to look anywhere other than the dark figure slouched against the opposite wall, lest he start snapping his jaws at her again. It’s a little difficult when the alternative scenery consists of four identical silver walls, a rust-brown rug, and a gray paneled ceiling that looks like it’s seen far better days. She starts counting the multi-colored wads of gum stuck overhead out of sheer desperation. She gets to twenty-three before he startles her by speaking again.

"So, what are you in for?"

"What?" she asks sharply.

"Why did Queen Veronica demand an audience?"

"Computer stuff," Mac mutters at the wall, wishing she had an answer just a little more exciting.

"You need to relax," he admonishes calmly. "It’s Sunday afternoon and there’s no maintenance crew on the planet that’s gonna hustle over here. We could be here all night."

"That’s not funny," she snaps. "And  _you_  were the one yelling at  _me_  five minutes ago."

"Yeah, well, we’re gonna be stuck for a while. Yelling’s gonna do nothing but make us deaf." He peels out of his leather jacket and balls it up under his neck, stretching out full length so his booted feet are right up next to her thighs. He sighs and closes his eyes, transition from caged animal to zen master complete.

Mac lets her gaze wander up his body, resentment warring with curiosity. It’s hard to believe someone so compact could be so threatening. He’s all dark colors and amber skin, shiny bald head, gold earrings like a pirate. The muscles in his arms make her wonder if he really could rip through the elevator doors, and there are tattoos twisted all around them: flowers and words and symbols. He looks a lot older than he is, hard and untamed. And it turns out that Weevil Navarro is…kinda hot.

"Like what you see?" he asks without opening his eyes.

She jumps about a mile. "You wish," she scoffs. It’s what a third-grader would say, but it’s the best she can manage with her face turning the color of a tomato.

"If you want a closer look there’s plenty of room over by me." He rubs a slow circle next to his hip.

Mac gives her most convincing snort. "I’m fine here, thanks."

"You sure about that? I don’t bite. Hard."

"Tempting, but no."

"What’s wrong?" he asks, smirking. "You only go on e-dates?"

She grits her teeth. "I didn’t realize that was a dinner invitation."

"Only if you’re buying. But hey, if you’re looking to pass the time I could show you a few new tricks."

She studies him in annoyance. His absurd eyelashes are still resting peacefully on his cheeks. He must do this all the time, she realizes, with every girl he comes across. She could stop talking, or evaporate altogether, and he could probably just carry on the routine by himself. Mac’s getting a little tired of being ignored.

She’s proud when her voice comes out with just the right mix of flat disbelief and boredom. "Do you really want to have sex with me right now?"

"Baby, I always want to have sex."

She considers him. "Fine," she says casually. "Let’s do it."

That chases the aloofness from his expression. He opens one eye. "Excuse me?"

"I’m serious. Let’s do it. Right now." She forces herself not to look away from his dark gaze.

He sits up slowly, elbows resting on knees. "You wanna ‘do it’" – finger quotes – "right now?"

"Yes."

He makes a sound that’s half chuckle, half snort. "Fine. Come on over."

"You come over here."

"Fine."

Neither of them moves. He’s really looking at her now for the first time, his mouth tugged up in the barest hint of a smile. He hitches his chin at her, "What’s your name?"

She feels a little buzz of triumph. "Mac."

"Mac," he says appraisingly. "You play poker?"

 


	3. Chapter 2

Clive pops his head in just as Veronica is dumping Mark’s last desk drawer onto his bed. "Princess," he says congenially. "What’ve you got for me?"

She blows the hair out of her eyes and glares. "Ok, Clive? You call me princess one more time, and you  _really_  won’t want to know." He continues to grin widely at her, completely unfazed by her rage. She wonders what Mac did to send him running in the other direction.

As a rule, she doesn’t feel guilty about rifling through other people’s belongings – it’s what she gets paid for, after all. There is something about the invasiveness of this search that leaves her cringing, though. She and Wallace have gone through the entire room twice: moving furniture, stripping the bed, dumping out drawers, and sifting through the closet. They’re not looking for anything in particular, and as a result they’ve found, to mention a few, Mark’s pornography collection, a journal full of bitter rants about high school, and a sock that looks like it’s been wedged behind the bed since the last inhabitant moved out. They’ve turned his life upside down and haven’t stumbled across a single shred of evidence indicating he might be a sticky-fingered paper-stealer. And the only thing left to search is locked and password protected, sitting on Mark’s desk.

"It pretty much comes down to the computer," she admits. "The room is clean."

"Well obviously," Clive says. "That computer is like oxygen to him. He’s a CS major; his whole life is probably on there." Veronica takes a few deep breaths and tells herself not to strangle the only paying client she’s had in a month.

"Good to know," she says tightly. "Of course, it would’ve been more helpful  _before_  we wasted two hours raiding the room."

Clive shrugs, jarringly placid for someone on the brink of academic disaster. "Didn’t think of it. Anyway, there’s a Q-bert tournament going on down the hall. That’s where I’ll be if you find anything."

"Any more pertinent information you didn’t think of?" she asks, arching an eyebrow. "Like, for instance: are you really sure Mark is the one who did this? His room doesn’t exactly scream ‘felon’."

"Yes," he says, sounding annoyed. "Who else would it be?" Veronica can think of about thirty reasons that she would sabotage this kid’s paper just for fun, and she’s known him less than a week. But: paying client.

"Where the hell is Mac?" she asks aloud, frustrated. "And why don’t I know any other computer geniuses?"

Wallace has long since given up on the search. He’s stretched out on Clive’s bed, tracing patterns on the wall. "We should take a break. Get some coffee or something. Then we can try again."

"Sorry. Time’s ticking. You know I only call you when it’s an emergency."

"You call me whenever you damn well please." He shoots her a pointed look. "And if you have time to cuddle with your boyfriend then I have time to go get a cup of coffee. I’m gonna need it, studying all night after wasting the whole day here with you."

To her horror, Veronica feels heat start to creep up her neck. "We weren’t cuddling. And he’s not my boyfriend."

"Ok. Your blush has convinced me."

She turns her back on the topic, literally and figuratively, and powers up her laptop. "If we can’t find anything here, we might as well do some background research." Wallace groans as she loads up the Hearst website and clicks on the link for Clive’s English class.

The first thing she notices is Clive's unfortunate paper topic. Milton. Ugh. The second thing she notices is a tiny, pencil-shaped icon decorating the corner of the screen. She clicks it curiously and…hello class rank. Excellent.

"How much do you want to bet Clive is lying through his teeth when he says he’s number one in the class?" she asks Wallace.

"If I win the bet, do I get some coffee?" he asks stonily.

A security prompt pops up before the page can load. "Password. Damn it. Why can’t we all just trust each other? Ok Wallace, I have a new task for you."

"I can hardly stand the excitement."

"Can you find out Mark and Clive’s student ID numbers for me?"

Wallace looks annoyed. "How the hell am I supposed to do that?"

"Well, Mark’s is…" she walks back over to Mark’s desk and opens the top drawer. Sure enough, the ID card is lying on top, right where she dropped it. She waves it triumphantly at Wallace. "I’m guessing for Clive – rinse, lather, repeat. It’s here somewhere."

"Don’t sound so thrilled. We still need a password."

"Leave that to me. I know people."

Veronica’s roommate is sitting at her desk when Veronica reaches her doorway, and she watches for a second as Logan makes small talk. He’s unnervingly charming when he wants to be. Which is rare. Sarah hasn’t lodged a single complaint about her roommate’s ever-present almost-boyfriend, for which Veronica’s grateful. She has a feeling Sarah’s acquiescence has less to do with kindness and more to do with the fact that Logan is the spawn of Aaron Echolls, but she’ll take whatever breaks she can get. She’s slightly less thrilled with the way her roommate’s eyes tend to wander over Logan’s chest and downward, but Veronica supposes until she’s willing to put an official claim on him she can’t blame anyone else for trying.

"You know you have a bed at your own place?" she asks, breezing into the room and setting her laptop down on her desk like she wasn’t just mooning over him in the hallway.

"But the company is so much nicer here," he says smoothly, flashing a grin at Sarah. Sarah all but bats her eyelashes at him, and Veronica grits her teeth.

"Sarah was filling me in on the Winter Formal plans. Second party you failed to mention. You know, I’m starting to think you’re embarrassed to take me places." His voice is casual, but she knows him too well. She sees his narrow fingers tighten once around the tennis ball.

"Well, if you would stop referring to all the waiters as ‘Jeeves’ we might be welcome in a few more local establishments," she says dryly. She touches his hand to make him look at her. "But I only didn’t tell you because I’m not going to Winter Formal. Neither is Sarah if she doesn’t get her ass in gear and ask someone."

Sarah waves a manicured hand at her dismissively. "I’ll pass on the lecture today, thanks. Maybe try after midterms."

Veronica picks up her phone and starts dialing.

"I like pepperoni on my pizza. No onions," Logan informs her.

She can’t suppress a smile. "Actually, I’m calling an old friend of  _yours_. He’s my contact for all the seedy undertakings of English Lit. Hello, Troy?"

"Veronica Mars. What can I do for you?" Troy Vandegraff’s voice, casual and oozing with charm, never fails to make her teeth grind.

"I have a little favor to ask."

"Shoot. But make it quick. I’m on my way to visit a lady friend."

"Sunday afternoon delight? Classy. I need the password you use to look up your class standing in English Lit."

"You checking up on me, beautiful? That’s sweet."

"You know me. Looking out for my friends."

"HTIMS2. It’s the prof’s name backwards."

Veronica wrinkles her nose. "That’s weak. I’m disappointed."

"Anything else I can help you with?"

"That’s all for now. Have fun with your…special lady friend."

Logan is watching her as she hangs up. "I didn’t realize you two were study buddies," he says, and there's an edge to his tone.

She fights the urge to roll her eyes. "Pure business."

He reaches up and tugs her hard onto the bed by her belt loop. She ends up flush against his jersey-covered chest, and he brushes his mouth lightly against hers. Heat spills from her cheeks down the rest of her body. "He was Duncan’s friend, not mine. And you were the one who dated him. Nice taste, Mars," he murmurs against her lips.

"I dated you, too."

"Everyone gets lucky once in a while."

"It’s ok if Logan wants to spend half his time here," Sarah breaks in from her desk, "but I draw the line at cuddling."

Veronica jerks up, flushed and nervous. "We’re not cuddling, we’re –"

"You’re not a couple, you’re really old friends, you have a history, blah blah blah blah. Lip to lip contact means you leave the room."

Logan stands up, stretching. "And I guess that’s my cue. You going to make me walk out all by my lonesome?"

She almost says something dismissive out of sheer habit; instead she smiles, because he’s grinning a million dollar movie star grin and holding out his hand, and sometimes he makes it impossible for her to remember why she’s being so cautious in the first place.

She tugs him toward the door. "Fine. But if you don’t learn your way around soon we’re going to have to get you a chaperone."

"Are you volunteering?"

"I might be…"

The second they’re out the door he stops her with a hand on her arm. He looks very serious, studying her face.

"I thought you needed help finding the exit."

"You know," he says, staring down with dark eyes, "I didn’t waste my whole day here to talk to your roommate."

"You didn’t seem like you were suffering," she says primly.

His lips tug up. "Why Veronica Mars, I do believe you’re jealous."

"I was gonna go with ‘amazed at how much you love to hear yourself talk’ but hey, if it makes you feel better..."

He leans down and kisses her, full on the mouth, in the middle of the hallway, people all around them. Over the buzzing in her ears she hears a lot of laughter and a wolf whistle. She tries to summon up some embarrassment, but honestly? It should be illegal for nineteen-year-old boys to have mouths like Logan Echolls. College is hard enough - slow, deep, brain-erasing kisses don’t do much for her study habits. He slides a hand down her back and actually  _lifts_  her against him, like they have the whole hall to themselves. She breaks away with a little gasp, trying to avoid the curious stares. Logan just drops his head down further, undeterred.

"Not really feeling the whole exhibitionist thing," she lies, fighting to keep her voice even despite his lips brushing the curve of her throat.

He lifts his head, and his expression is far too smug for comfort. "If only we had an empty hotel suite waiting for us across town."

"Yeah…that’s not going to happen."

"Because you’d rather canoodle in the middle of the hallway?"

"Because," she gathers her resolve and shoves a few scant inches of distance between them, "I’m in the middle of a case, and I have midterms, and a million things to do. Also, I don’t go to hotel suites with boys who say ‘canoodle’."

His eyes are running over her in the way that scares her, that tells her he’s in love with her, and that she might have to be in love with him too if she doesn’t want to break him completely.

"Ok," he says slowly, "not in your room and not in mine." His eyebrows lift suggestively. "Wanna go get stuck in an elevator?"

*****

Mac collects the cards gleefully. "I hope those new tricks you were talking about weren’t card tricks," she crows. "Cause I gotta tell you – not that impressed so far."

Weevil watches her hands with mild interest as she shuffles. "Did Veronica teach you to play?"

She raises an eyebrow. "No. Why?"

"You play alike," Weevil says dismissively. "All flash. Except Veronica can actually bluff. You – open book."

She considers explaining that learning to win at cards is basically straight math. Somehow, she doesn’t think Weevil will appreciate the lesson. She has to content herself with, "That’s misplaced confidence coming from someone who hasn’t won in three hands."

He shrugs, a coy little smirk on his face. "If you were just a little less pitiful I wouldn’t have to  _let_  you win."

"And you said  _I_ was the one who couldn’t bluff," she says sweetly. He’s oddly comfortable to be around, once he stops glaring at you like he’s about to pound you into the ground. He’s undeniably beautiful and surprisingly sharp, and she realizes that, in a strange way, she’s having fun. If someone had told her that morning that she would be talking trash with Weevil Navarro in an elevator, she probably wouldn’t have gotten out of bed. Now, she’s glad no one warned her.

"Yeah, well maybe I’m just not putting my best foot forward," he says easily, tapping a booted heel against the ground. "I tend to get lazy when there’s nothing in it for me."

"Nothing except the loss of your self-respect."

His smile does nothing to soften his features; if anything, the flash of white teeth makes him look more predatory. "You wanna actually make it interesting?"

"That depends on if you’re about to propose strip poker."

He laughs. "Baby, I’ll strip for free."

"Because  _that’s_  what I was getting at," she says dryly.

"Actually, I was thinking more…financially," he says, rummaging through his discarded jacket. He pulls out a handful of change and spills it onto the rug. His wallet comes toppling out of his pocket with the coins, as well as a lighter and a hefty flask. Black, leather-bound, fascinating.

"We use coins like chips," he explains, "and then if we ever get out of this craphole we match dollars for cents. We can start with, say, two dollars each. I wouldn’t want to take you for too much of your allowance mon- Hello?"

She’s trying to listen to him, she really is, but her eyes keep straying to the flask. "Or," she hears herself say, "we could play drinking poker."

He snorts. "Right." Then he sees she’s not laughing. "Tell me I heard that wrong." He’s staring at her like she just sprouted little red devil’s horns, like she suggested something scandalous and inappropriate instead of something college freshmen do four out of every five nights.

"What’s in here, anyway?" She reaches for the flask, but he swipes it out from under her fingertips.

"Uh uh." He’s shaking his head. "No, no way, get that thought out of your head, girl. Don’t give me that look. No."

"What’s the big deal?"

He raises an eyebrow in disbelief. "A Mexican ex-convict getting a local white girl drunk in a locked elevator. In Neptune? Do I look suicidal?"

Suicidal. The word cuts straight to her gut, and for a second she’s gasping in a hotel room, and her world is unrolling all around her, and Veronica is telling her that her boyfriend is smeared on the pavement fifteen stories below.

She has a sudden, fierce need for oblivion. She doubles her efforts to get her hands on that fucking flask. "Oh, I get it. You’re scared," she challenges tartly, trying to provoke him.

"Who are you, the schoolyard bully?" he returns, and his eyes are laughing at her.

She presses her lips together. "No, that would be you. Is everyone in the PCH bike club this much of a prude?" His face darkens slightly, just enough to make her nervous.

"I don’t want to be trapped in a 4x4 metal box with a puking computer nerd, and that makes me a prude?" he asks, eyebrows drawing in.

Mac thinks if he refers to her as a nerd one more time she’s going to throw her shoe at him. "I won’t puke, you ass. Alcohol has graced my lips on occasion. Or is the game just too hard for you? Let me explain." She stretches her words out, like she’s talking to a very slow child. "I win. You drink. You win. I drink."

He leans forward. "You can keep talking all day and it’s still Not. Gonna. Happen. The computer games must be scrambling your brain, girl." Maybe not her shoe, Mac thinks contemplatively. Something more painful. Like her fist. He sits back. "Anyway, those rules don’t work. You’d be flat on your ass before I even felt a buzz, and I never take advantage of the fairer sex," he says politely.

"Yeah, well getting me drunk would require you actually winning a hand or two," she snaps, "and we’ve already seen how likely that is." He shakes his head again, but there’s an odd glint in his eyes.

"And I don’t play computer games," she continues peevishly. "I’m a CS major, not a fourteen-year-old boy. Now, are you going to tell me what we’re drinking?"

His gaze flickers once to the flask, and she realizes he’s weakening. She can almost hear the inner dialogue going on behind his eyes: the comfort of alcohol in a shitty situation versus the possible ramifications. He’s right – he could get himself in deep shit. If she were to drop the slightest hint – to anyone – that Eli Navarro tried to take advantage of her in this elevator, he would be dragged down to the police station faster than his motorcycle could carry him. It’s very, very smart of him to worry, and she wonders briefly how someone with such a strong sense of consequence ended up in jail at eighteen years old.

She emphatically does not want him to be smart about this. She’s not feeling particularly smart herself at the moment. There’s something about trading barbs with him that makes her feel reckless. She likes his eyes on her. If they weren’t stuck in the world’s smallest elevator she would just blend into the California skyline for him, but right now she’s the only companionship he has. And she suddenly wants to play drinking poker with Eli Navarro more than anything she’s ever wanted in her life.

"Is it whiskey?" she guesses, trying to keep him on topic.

He’s silent.

"Rum?"

He looks at the ground.

"Vodka?" she pushes.

He lets out a defeated sigh. "Do I look Russian to you?"

She can’t stop the smile from stretching her entire face. "Tequila," she says, satisfied. "You want to deal, or should I?


	4. Chapter 3

Wallace is reading Mark’s  _Science World_  magazine when Veronica pokes her head in. "I guess that’s better than the porn," she says flippantly. "Stop scowling at me. Password is HTIMS2."

"Tell me again why  _I_  have to do this?"

She can still feel the guilty imprint of Logan’s lips on her neck. "Because I am being a good friend and going to get that coffee you asked for."

Wallace’s face lights up. "Nice. Mocha latte. Whipped cream. Maybe a muffin," he says dreamily.

Logan slides in beside her. "They let you eat like that during training?"

"Hey, you can’t slow down the Fen-man."

Veronica wrinkles her nose. "Don’t expect me to start calling you that. And see what you can find while you’re digging around that website. There might be something else useful."

"This guy has the top spot in English?" Logan glances around the room in distaste.

"What?" she asks at his obvious disdain. "Décor not up to your standards?"

"I’ve seen ritzier crap piles. But I meant that it’s a little more Bill Nye than Bill Shakespeare." She looks at him blankly. "No books," he says, gesturing to the room at large.

"Actually," she says slowly, "you’re right." Realization dawns on her as she glances around. "I assumed he was an English major, but…no tattered paperbacks, no cheesy posters with literary quotes." She focuses on his desk, thinking out loud. "No boring art films, no visible weed stash." She takes in the Star Wars poster, the hefty textbooks lining his shelf, and the stack of computer games perched haphazardly next to his printer. A little model engineering set that she never noticed before is stuffed into the alcove above his computer. "It looks like he copied a spread right out of that  _Science World_  magazine."

Wallace looks annoyed. "That doesn’t mean anything."

"Let me see Clive’s ID card." She looks up, frowning. "He’s an Electrical Engineering major, not English. Why would an EE and a CS major care so much about their standing in a basic English course?"

"Maybe they’re just overachievers," Wallace suggests, unimpressed.

"Maybe… I don’t know. It’s just weird."

"Riveting," Logan drawls. "Can we go on our ‘coffee break’ now?"

She hastily pushes Logan out into the hallway, suppressing laughter. "I think using the finger quotes in front of Wallace kind of detracts from the point of the euphemism." She calls back to Wallace, "I left the website open on my desk. Thanks a bunch."

"Mocha latte," Wallace yells after them. "And a muffin."

She sticks her head back inside. "If you see Weevil wandering around, grab him. I’m gonna send him in to lean on Mark a little."

"If I see Weevil I’ll stay right here in this chair and let him find his own damn way."

"Aw, are you still scared of Weevil? C’mon – no one likes a wandering Weevil… Just make sure he doesn’t leave. He was supposed to be here by now."

"Those muffins better be something."

She opens her mouth to respond, but Logan yanks her back into the hallway. "You got stood up by Mac  _and_  Weevil? It’s almost like they don’t  _want_  to be your minions," he says in feigned amazement.

"I know. I really have to update my posse."

"If you’re looking to update, I’d start with your vocabulary. Your slang is from 1994."

"We need to use a little elevator time to run to the coffee shop," she cautions. "If I come back without muffins that’s the last I’ll see of Wallace for a month."

"Yes ma’am. Just remember, you’re the one who asked for speed."

"I’ll keep that in – um." She stops short. A paunchy, balding, middle-aged man dressed in a blue work suit is fiddling with the open control panel next to the elevator. After a second he notices them standing there, hand in hand.

"Sorry kids. Elevator’s jammed. You’re going to have to use the stairs."

Logan’s back thumps against the wall. "So much for that plan."

Veronica feels a trickle of unease. "How long has the elevator been jammed?"

"A few hours. I’ve never seen the circuitry so scrambled. We had to call in an electrician."

"Did anyone get trapped in there?" she asks in dread, already knowing the answer.

"A couple of students. They’re fine –" he says quickly, misinterpreting the horrified look on her face. "They just won’t be getting much studying done today."

She closes her eyes, pained. Without Mac, the computer might as well be at the bottom of the ocean. The workman is looking at her curiously. The panic she infuses into her voice is only half-feigned when she says, "Is there a way to call them on the emergency phone?"

He shifts uncomfortably. "The line connects to the Maintenance office, but only staff members are allowed. Sorry, sweetheart."

She clings to Logan’s arm in what she assumes is a charming display of distress. "Please…" she glances at his name badge, "…Bob. My best friend has been missing for hours. I’ve been so worried." She widens her eyes. "Can I just talk to her for a minute? I need to make sure she’s ok."

Logan’s looking at her like she sprouted an extra arm, but Bob’s face softens. "She’s claustrophobic," she adds sadly, figuring it can only help her case. "She must be terrified."

Bob scratches his bristly mustache. "I guess I can let you in for a few minutes. We wouldn’t want your friend to panic, now would we?" He adds warningly, "I’ll have to go with you. And don’t you be telling anyone else about this."

She sighs in enormous relief. "Thank you soooooooooo much. You’re  _such_ a lifesaver." Bob beams.

She follows him to the stairwell, and at her pointed look back Logan trails after them, shaking his head.

*****

"You said ‘today of all days.’"

"What?" Weevil looks up from his cards.

"Before, you said, ‘not today of all days.’ What’s so bad about today?"

His mouth turns down in annoyance. "I don’t remember prying into your life in the last five minutes."

"Hey, you brought it up."

"Now I’m shutting it down. You got a problem with that?"

They’ve been playing for over an hour, and Mac’s taken three drinks to Weevil’s seven. Despite her assertions to Weevil, her experience with drinking has been limited to keg beer and cocktails consisting of far more coke than rum. But she would take all her clothes off and give Weevil a lap dance before she let him know he was right. So she took her first drink under his knowing smirk and didn’t even cringe, despite the fact that tears sprang to her eyes and she wanted to spit it right back out.

The second one was pretty gross, too, but the third one went down slightly easier, and now she’s feeling buzzed and relaxed and pretty damn companionable with Weevil Navarro. She’s also feeling much more interested in the way his tattoos climb around the contours of his arms than in the card game.

Mac just shrugs at his terseness. "Fine. Be cryptic." She tries to keep the hurt from her voice, because it’s stupid to be disappointed just because Weevil isn’t garnering the same lazy comfort from her presence that she’s taking from his. It’s just…she was starting to think she could sit and share bad-day stories with him for hours on end.

Weevil frowns at her for a moment. "Ok," he relents. "I was supposed to be at my uncle’s shop today, but my grandmother got called into work, so instead of making a paycheck I get stuck with babysitting duty. Like that’s not shitty enough, I get crazy detective girl on the phone telling me she needs a favor. I left my cousins alone, because," he mimics Veronica’s voice, "it’ll only take one hour, Weevil."

He makes a frustrated noise. "That’s it. I’m changing my number. No more favors for V.  _Abuela_ is gonna kick my ass to next Tuesday when she finds out I left them. The poor kids have had enough people running out on them," he sighs morosely. "They’re probably thinking I’m next on the list." Mac looks at the slump of his broad shoulders, the defeated curve to his mouth, the obvious concern he has for his cousins, and her heart expands with pity. She wants to put her arms around him and tell him it’s not his fault, that’s he’s a hell of a guy for caring so much.

She wonders how often he uses babysitting stories to get girls into bed. Really, it’s way more effective than a pick-up line.

She pushes aside the urge to comfort him and raises an eyebrow. "Or they could be raiding the candy stash and playing baseball in the living room."

"Thanks."

She can’t stop her voice from softening slightly. "You know, you could’ve just refused."

"True. And yet here we both are. How do you explain that?"

"I’m being paid for my troubles," Mac says loftily. "Or was, before this piece of crap malfunctioned."

"Yeah, well, I’ve already been paid," he says quietly.

"What does that mean?"

But apparently that’s the extent of Weevil’s emotional show-and-tell. "Are we playing or what?" he asks angrily.

"Jesus," Mac mutters. She tries to concentrate on the cards in front of her. She has a good hand – a really stellar, fabulous, wager-the-family-jewels type of hand – if she could just remember which step of the game they’re on. The flask is more interesting, anyway. She picks it up, liking the solid curve of it in her palm, and takes another sip. It goes down smooth and tart and not at all disgusting.

"I don’t remember finishing that round," he remarks evenly.

"I was going to win anyway," she says cheerfully. She points at the flask. "I like this. I think I’m a tequila girl. Is this what you always drink, you know, in the barrio? I think I’d fit right in." And she’s lost complete control of her mouth, because she’s flirting with Weevil Navarro, and she is halfway drunk and all the way insane.

He guffaws. "I’m trapped in an elevator with the whitest girl south of the Canadian border.  _Barrio_ ," he corrects her, rolling the word out of his mouth in a combination of breath and teeth and tongue that sends hot-cold sensation through every one of her limbs.

"How the hell did I let you talk me into this?" he asks with mingled amusement and exasperation. She brings the flask to her mouth again, and his eyes follow its path. She stops, surprised, but his gaze flickers away immediately. He rouses himself with a little head shake. "No more for you, neighborhood girl or not," he says gruffly, plucking the flask out of her hands. He caps it and tucks it back in his jacket, and she lets him without protest.

He can’t meet her eyes as she silently watches him shuffle. His hands are beautiful – strong and brown and sinewy, an artist’s hands on a mechanic’s body. When he finally glances her way his gaze goes straight to her lips. And there’s not even a flask there this time.

There’s no way, in the name of all that’s corrupt in Neptune, that Weevil Navarro is thinking about kissing her. But he’s stopped shuffling cards, and he’s scowling at his artistic hands, not looking up at all, and Mac feels almost certain he’s thinking about her mouth.

Mac suddenly wishes she hadn’t started drinking, because if she were completely sober she would still be rational and practical and cynical, and she wouldn’t be about to do something as monumentally stupid as crawl over and kiss Weevil on the lips. She’s already started forward when the phone rings.

Weevil jumps violently. "What the…?"

It rings again, or more precisely beeps, a long, low tone like an intercom.

Mac answers, "Hello?" She sounds far away to her own ears.

"So I guess it turned out to be a little more than an hour." Veronica’s voice is tentative over the line, and the reason why she’s trapped in this godforsaken elevator in the first place comes back to Mac in a rush. She suddenly feels stone sober.

"This friendship is over," she says flatly. "You and me – broken up."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I think Clive Cressley is terrified of you. He won’t come within a ten mile radius when you’re working on the computer."

"Sure," Mac agrees. "Because I won’t be working on the computer. As soon as this thing starts moving again I am turning around and going home." She glances at Weevil, sitting cross-legged in the corner like a little kid. "And I’m pretty sure your muscle is going to do the same."

"Weevil’s in there with you?" Veronica asks, surprised. "Can you put him – Logan!" Her voice grows far away.

Logan Echolls’ voice comes over the receiver. "I need to speak with Eli for a second," he says seriously.

Mac hands over the phone. "It’s for you. Eli."

He looks at her dumbly for a minute before taking the receiver. "V?" His jaw tightens immediately. "Fuckin’ hilarious," he snaps into the phone. "Laugh it up, asshole. You better pray on your momma’s grave that you’re gone when I get outta here. Don’t you have other people to piss off? Jesus."

He doesn’t so much hand her the phone as simply drop it. It clatters on its short cord, and Mac can hear Logan’s laughter on the other end. By the time she picks up again Veronica is back on the line. "Can you grow up?" she’s saying sharply. Logan keeps laughing. "Mac?" she says into the receiver.

"Amazingly, I’m still here."

"Look, Mac, I’m really sorry that this happened, but…since you’re going to be there for a while…"

Mac rolls her forehead back and forth against the cool metal and laughs shortly. "What do you need me to do?

"How do you feel about working remotely?"

"Wonderful. But you have to do me a favor first."

"Anything," Veronica says, surprised.

Weevil is still glowering at the corner, no doubt envisioning doing violence to Logan Echolls. Mac clears her throat uncomfortably. "Weevil had to leave his cousins alone, and he’s afraid they might be…could you just call his house and let them know where he is? Make sure everything’s ok?" Weevil’s head snaps around.

"Done." There’s a question in Veronica’s voice, an invitation to explain further, but Mac’s not about to delve into convoluted motives with Weevil’s stare boring a hole in her back.

"Ok," she sighs. "Now, I need as much information about the model as you can get…"


	5. Chapter 4

"Damn it!" Veronica slaps the wall in frustration as they make their way back to her room. "Back at square one. I hate square one. It’s my least favorite square," she says darkly.

Between the challenge of lifting the spare key out of the maintenance office while Bob the Maintenance Man’s back was turned, and the monumental production of searching Mark’s computer, she can feel the exhaustion creeping in. The vision of an immediate paycheck, and of Clive’s promised connections in university housing, is drifting farther and farther away.

Mark’s computer was locked to his desk, so breaking in took a tag team of Mac giving instructions in the elevator, Logan carrying them out upstairs in Mark’s room, grumbling all the way of course, and herself with the emergency phone up to one ear and her cell phone up to the other, relaying information between the two of them.

" _What does this guy have on here, a treasure map?"_ Mac asked when they broke through the third layer of security. _"His system is ridiculous."_ Veronica asked anxiously.

 _"Can you do it?"_  
  
"Definitely. But I’m impressed."

And yet – nothing. They rooted every email, every document, every program he’d opened in the last month, tried every disk, and they still came up empty handed.

"The great Veronica Mars, foiled," Logan intones dramatically. "The foundations of my belief system are crumbling." She considers slapping him, too. "Wait! I’ve got it! We could  _not_  give a flying fuck what happened to this kid’s paper and spend the rest of the night enjoying champagne and silk sheets."

She stops. "No one’s keeping you here," she says shortly. "But I don’t have the luxury of champagne and silk sheets. I solve this or I don’t get paid." Then she turns and keeps walking.

He scrambles after her. "Ok, I’m sorry," he says, aggrieved. "Will you just wait? Hey," he catches her shoulder. "I’m sorry."

He always, always chases her, and it makes her want to forgive him and turn around and yell at him all at once. "Just forget it," she says wearily.

He shuts up. But he locks their fingers together, like he can physically keep her anger away through the magic of touch. He strokes the inside of her wrist a few tentative times with his thumb, and she can’t help but wonder if maybe he can.

Wallace is flirting with some girl Veronica’s never even seen when they reach her hallway. "I wouldn’t call it a sports team so much as a family," he’s telling her as she listens raptly. "Playing basketball is kind of like having fifteen brothers who – " his gaze darkens when he sees them.

"You better pull some muffins out of your sleeve  _right now_ ," he warns, "Or I’m outta here."

She rubs her forehead. "I think this case may be dead anyway. What did you find out?"

"Weevil didn’t show. And your boy Clive is a liar."

"Funny story about Weevil…wait, what do mean he’s a liar? He’s not at the top of his class?"

"He is. Mark isn’t. That boy could pass in the equivalent of  _The Tempest_  and he’d still never come close to finishing at the top of the class."

She stares at Wallace, her brain whirling. "But…that doesn’t make any sense. If he didn’t do it because of academic rivalry, why would he do it?"

Wallace raises his eyebrows. "Maybe he’s mean."

"Or an idiot," Logan offers.

"Or maybe they just really don’t like each other," Wallace continues. "You’ve met Clive, right?"

"But if they’re not in competition, why go after the paper, specifically? There are plenty of better ways to destroy your roommate."

"Poor Sarah," Wallace mutters.

She can feel the tension tugging on her nerves, pulling her mouth down. "Clive is hiding something else from us," she says suddenly. "I know it; I can  _feel_  it. This can’t just be about the paper. Mark had no reason on earth to take it."

"Is this the part where you tie him to a chair and shine a flashlight in his eyes until he confesses?" Logan asks with a raised eyebrow.

"As fun as that sounds," she says, tapping her chin, "I’m suggesting we use what we already have at our advantage."

"Which is?"

"An all-access pass to their dorm room," she says triumphantly. "We’ll just have Mac search his computer, too."

"You know, something tells me Clive won’t be too pleased if he catches you using that all-access pass to look through  _his_ things," Wallace says skeptically.

"That’s why there’s nothing more valuable than a little distraction."

Wallace’s expression is wary. "If the next words out of your mouth are ‘I need a favor’ I will not answer for my actions, so help me God."

"I do need a favor, just not from you. I don’t really think you’re Clive’s type."

"What?"

"I have a better idea."

*****

"So I guess that’s your thing," Weevil remarks when Mac hangs up with Veronica.

She shrugs. "I guess."

"That’s not bad. To be able to do that." He sounds almost…wistful. Mac looks at him closely.

"Well, it was pretty useless today. At least your way would have gotten some results."

He shoots her an annoyed glance. "My way being what?"

"You know, the way where you clap him on the shoulder and glare, and he confesses rather than pee himself."

He rolls his eyes. "Someone’s been watching too much  _Sopranos_."

Interesting. So he’s not entirely comfortable with his criminal status. Mac wonders if it’s part of the new, reformed Weevil, or if he’s just not as scary as she’d been led to believe. He certainly looks every inch the gangster as he slouches against the wall across from her, threatening and aloof. The black eyes, the shaved head, the tattoos: you could put him in a frilly pink dress and he’d still be terrifying. Which doesn’t explain why she stopped being afraid hours ago.

"Well," she says, shrugging, "it doesn’t look like either of us is going to be much help on this case. Which makes this day suck even worse."

Weevil tilts his head at her. "Why are you whining? I thought you were getting paid. You have a hot date you’re missing?"

"No," she says, a little stung by his sarcasm. "This guy Veronica’s working for is a total sleaze.  _I’m_  stuck in an elevator because she’s trying to help some asshole who probably deserves to fail out anyway."

Weevil stands up and stretches like a jungle cat, an amused expression on his face. "What did he do? Sleep with you and not call? Spill punch on your dress? Paw you at some party?" Mac feels her face begin to heat up, and Weevil freezes, mid neck roll.

"Poor. Little. College. Girl." he hisses, venom rolling off him in waves. "In a snit because some rich boy you have a crush on didn’t treat you like a princess." She stares at him, stunned by his sudden virulence. "Fuck your little white girl problems. I’d love for you to spend  _one week_  in my neighborhood, and then see if you can look yourself in a mirror. Shit."

He looks down at her like she’s a bug he picked off his stupid, clunking boots, and she feels her own temper start to rise in response. "I didn’t  _say_  it was a Greek tragedy; he just wasn’t very nice."

"You’re breaking my heart," he snaps.

"You don’t know anything about me," she says furiously. "Just because I didn’t grow up in your neighborhood, doesn’t mean I don’t have problems."

"Like what?" he asks derisively. "Your beamer break down? Your roommate have a shinier computer than you?"

"My boyfriend threw himself off the roof of the Neptune Grand," she says flatly. "After he blew up a busload of people."

That shuts him up. She feels cold spread from the pit her stomach to the tips of her fingers and toes. She hasn’t spoken with anyone about Beaver. Her poor parents have no idea what to say, and Veronica has her own myriad issues. Her mother’s been begging her to get counseling for months, but she can barely even think Beaver’s name, let alone say it out loud. And she just blurted it out to Weevil Navarro.

Weevil sinks down on his haunches, rubbing a hand over his face. "That kid was your boyfriend?" he asks, cringing.

"Yes."

"Shit," he mumbles.

"Everyone has problems," she says coldly. "Your hard-knock boys’ club doesn’t have a monopoly on shitty luck."

He slides back down the wall to the floor. "I’m sorry." She doesn’t answer.

"I am," he says more forcefully. "Pay attention – this is the only apology you’ll ever hear from me, ok? I’m sorry."

"Fine," she says. She leans her head back against the wall. Her shoulders are painfully tense, waiting for him to press it, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t offer her pity, or ask for details, or tell her how stupid and naïve she was to fall for a mass murderer, and she starts to relax at his silence.

He reaches into his jacket and pulls out his flask again. He holds it up between his thumb and forefinger like a peace offering. "What happened to ‘No more for you’?" she asks mockingly, still slightly pissed.

He lifts his shoulders in an easy little shrug, an indecipherable expression passing over his face. "I changed my mind," is all he says. She takes the flask.

They pass it back and forth for a few minutes in a silence that’s peaceful, if not quite friendly. Then he says contemplatively, "I don’t want to hurt your feelings or nothin’, but your boyfriend was an asshole."

She can’t help it; she starts to laugh.

"How many deep dark secrets you have in there?" he asks. He has a half-smile on his face, but his dark eyes are intent, like he might really be curious.

"Millions," she answers, playing along because they’re still in an elevator, and there’s really nothing else to do. "You?"

"Too many," he says, and she believes him.

"I don’t suppose you want to confess something painful and humiliating now?" she asks glumly. "It’s a good time, I promise."

She’s (mostly) kidding, which is why her eyebrows almost hit the ceiling when he offers, "I got shot once." He scoots over to her and pulls the fabric of his wife beater aside to display a round, ragged scar on the back of his shoulder, shiny and white.

"How did that happen?" she breathes.

He huffs a self-conscious laugh. "I tell people it happened on a car loot gone wrong, but…it actually happened when I was seven. Drive-by in my neighborhood. I was playing in front of my grandmother’s house, and I caught a stray bullet." He sounds embarrassed.

She reaches out and touches the ridged tissue, and his broad shoulders go very still. She runs her thumb over it once or twice, feeling the healed web of skin. She notices another scar stretching in a thin line beneath the bullet hole, and she moves her hand down to touch it. "More childhood trauma?" she asks, barely breathing. His skin is warm and brown under her fingers, flesh over muscle over bone, and she wants to trace every one of his scars. He smells warm, too, like leather and tequila, and she can’t force her eyes away from the sight of her pale fingers touching his back.

He shrugs away, and she drops her hands immediately. "Naw. That one’s, uh – that one’s the real deal."

"Oh."

"My grandmother is the only other person who knows that. Keep it quiet."

She holds up two fingers. "Scout’s honor."

His sensual mouth is twisted into a wry smile. "Great."

They’ve moved shoulder to shoulder now, backs against the wall. She can feel the warmth of alcohol start to spread in her veins again, and every time her arm brushes against him her nerves light up like a glow worm.  
 _  
Not good,_  she thinks, panic warring with the impulse to press closer to him. Sudden, unexplained, quickfire sexual attraction to Weevil Navarro will do nothing to help along her self-esteem issues. Falling for the Neptune High’s "Most Likely to Turn Sociopath" has shaken her confidence enough; she doesn’t want to follow with the town’s foremost petty criminal.

She can feel him tracing her profile out of the corner of her eye. He shifts forward slightly and she holds her breath. Her heart sinks a little when he sits back, just stretching. She, on the other hand, is going insane. And she definitely needs a distraction from the warmth of him pressed all along her side.

"Do you want to play cards again?" she asks half-heartedly.

"No."

She glances at the scattered coins. "Quarter hockey?"

"No." He’s staring at her with a peculiar, moody expression on his face.

"Finger puppets?" she asks, looking for some reaction.

"No."

"Do you want to tell me why they dragged you away at graduation?"

"You’re a pain in the ass," he says.

That smarts just a little more than it should. "Silence it is," she murmurs, shifting a few inches away from him as surreptitiously as possible.

"You’re a pain," he repeats, "but that was nice what you did. Asking Veronica to check on my cousins." He offers her the flask again, sliding the whole length of his bare arm against her bent knee. And just like that she feels like smiling again.  
  
 _Not good, not good, not good_ , she tells herself. But she tips her head back and drinks.


	6. Chapter 5

"Come on, Sarah," Veronica cajoles. "Remember last month, when that grad student wouldn’t leave you alone, and I spilled beer on him to make him go away? You owe me."

"You spilled beer on him because he put his hand on your thigh."

"I was thinking of you the whole time," she assures her roommate.

"No. I’m sorry, Veronica, but no. Midterms are next week, and I’m  _this close_  to getting a D in Calculus, and I don’t have time to lead some horny client of yours around by the nuts for two hours while you do…whatever you do. No." Sarah’s expression is stony.

"You’re my new hero," Logan says wonderingly from the bed, where he has once again dropped himself. "Let’s start a club. We can call it ‘Veronica Mars – Just Say No.’ "

Veronica tamps down on her irritation. "Ok, ok. But.  _I_ tested out of calculus. What would you say to an hour of tutoring every night until the exam? All my secret Jedi knowledge right at your fingertips…" she trails off enticingly.

Sarah shakes her head. "You’ll have to do better than that."

"Jedi math tricks…plus three loads of laundry?"

"Not even close. And the longer you interrupt my  _current_  study session, the more it’s going to cost you."

Veronica casts around the room desperately for something else to barter. She has no doubt her exotic, dark-haired roommate can hold Clive’s attention long enough for her to turn the place inside out, but she’s running out of time. It’s already past six, and Mark will be home at eight.

"Actually," Sarah says suddenly, and Veronica’s ears perk up. "There is something I want."

"Anything," Veronica says in relief. "My wish is your command."

Sarah grins slyly, and Veronica realizes she may have just made a mistake. "I need a date to Winter Formal." Her eyes flicker meaningfully at the figure sprawled across her mattress.

It takes Veronica a full ten seconds to process this unsettling new development. "You want to take  _Logan_?"

Logan explodes in laughter on the bed. Sarah smiles a little too fondly at him, and Veronica feels something tight and itchy seat itself right in the center of her chest.

"Well, you’ll have to ask Logan," she says stiffly.

"I’d be honored," he chuckles, without hesitation, and she looks at him sharply.

Sarah raises her eyebrows at the doubtlessly enraged expression on Veronica’s face. "Is this a problem?" she asks innocently. "I mean, it’s not like he’s your boyfriend, right? And like you said… _you’re_ not going."

No. No problem. Except a sudden urge to claw every last hair out of Sarah’s pretty scalp.

It takes some effort to make her voice come out calm. "I just - didn’t think Logan liked school functions all that much. The administration tends to frown on binge drinking."

"I’m more than willing to make an exception if it helps crack the case," he says solemnly, completely unfazed by her rancor. His eyes are gleaming at her, daring her to forbid it, to make it official.

She shuts her mouth, trapped. The thought of her gorgeous, giggling roommate parading Logan around the student hall makes her teeth grind. But they’re both looking at her with twin smiles, expectant and amused, and Veronica has the distinct feeling she’s being manipulated. And that might be the one thing she hates even more than the thought of Sarah taking Logan to the formal. "Great," she says, voice brittle. "It’s a deal."

His eyes harden a little at that, but he says, "Perfect."

"Perfect," Sarah echoes brightly, and Veronica wants to drag Logan out the door, away from her stupid, white smile and her stupid, shiny hair. She sits down at her desk instead and starts violently rummaging. She’s not really looking for anything, but it’s better than meeting either of their gazes.

"So, I’ll give you a call on Monday?" Sarah says tentatively to Logan. "We can coordinate."

Veronica can feel Logan’s eyes on the back of her neck. "Yeah," he says tightly, and walks out of the room. She watches him go, biting down on the inside of her cheek until she tastes blood.

Sarah is looking at her through narrowed eyes. "What is wrong with you?" she asks bluntly. "What the hell are you waiting for?"

Exactly what she’s always waiting for with Logan: disaster. But there’s no way to make Sarah understand that. So instead she snits, "You got your date. Now, are you going to help me or not?"

Sarah groans. "Jesus, you’re stubborn. Fine. But this has to stop, Veronica. Fuck him, or cut him loose. This room is starting to feel like a lit fuse."

If only it were that easy. If only they could get out of each other’s systems with a neat fuck. Then Logan could find someone who wasn’t scared shitless of him, and she could find a nice, normal boy who didn’t share four years’ worth of baggage with her.

If only she could stop caring about him. Then she could step away and watch him self-destruct from outside the fallout zone.

Logan is waiting for her in Clive’s room, leaning against the dresser. "Anyone else you want to pimp me out to?" he asks, tight-lipped. "You know, while I’m here?"

"Is that a request?" she jokes weakly. He doesn’t crack a smile. "Well, why did you agree?" she asks, hearing the edge creep into her own voice.

Instead of answering, he crosses his arms. "What are we doing here, Veronica?"

" _I’m_  finishing a job," she says tightly. His expression doesn’t change, and she realizes he’s not going to drop it this time. "Can we not do this right now?" she asks desperately.

"Fine. When should I clear my schedule?"

Veronica was thinking sometime in the vicinity of never, but it doesn’t look like Logan’s going to be that cooperative.

"Great," he says, when she doesn’t respond.

She takes a shaky breath and puts a hand on Logan’s chest. "I’m sorry. I just – this thing is still scary for me.  _You_ …are still a little scary."

His body uncoils the slightest bit. His hand comes up to touch her cheek. "I would  _never_  do anything to hurt you," he says intently, and she knows he believes it. She wants to laugh, because he’s hurt her so many times and in so many different ways that he may as well be a big neon warning sign. And she is so very screwed.

She touches his mouth, the smallest entreaty, and he kisses her fingers. It’s going to all come down around her, she knows. She can feel it. It’s going to blow up in her face, and it’s going to be a million times worse than before, because this time she’s pretty sure she’s in love. She hasn’t solved anything; at best it’s been postponed, but at least Logan’s face has lost that thunderous expression.

"You’re lucky you’re so hot when you’re jealous," he murmurs in her ear, and she shivers.

She puts a hand on either side of his face to get his attention. "If your eyes even dip below Sarah’s chin at the dance," she says in measured tones, "I’ll hunt you down and kill you."

He buries his laugh in the top of her head and drags her against him, and she feels all the tension drain out of her body. She goes up on her toes, shaken by the sudden, fierce urge to have her mouth on his. He puts a hand on the back of her neck, deepens the kiss as much as humanly possible, and she gets the feeling he’s trying to drink her. To take as much of her as she’ll let him take. She’s highly considering taking a "coffee break" with Logan right in Clive’s room when Clive and Sarah wander past.

Clive stops in the doorway with a smirk. "That’s not what I’m paying you for, is it?" Veronica glares at him, unamused. Logan looks even less so. "Ok kids," he continues, without wiping that irritating smirk off his face, "me and your lovely roommate are going to grab some dinner. Any luck yet?"

"Still none. Kids," she replies tautly. Sarah shoots her a dirty look behind Clive’s back.

"Hey, no worries. It’s too bad your computer friend couldn’t make it, though," he says mournfully. "I bet he has a confession right there, all written out."

Veronica shakes her head. "You would think so, but no. I’m starting to run out of options, here."

Clive freezes. "You checked the computer?" he says urgently. "You mean you got in? And there was nothing? You didn’t find anything?"

"That’s right," Veronica says cautiously. "But we haven’t given up yet. Don’t worry."

Clive runs an unsteady hand through his hair. "No. N-No worries."

Then he walks over to his desk, unplugs his computer, and sticks it in his laptop case.

Veronica watches him with narrowed eyes. "I – uh, I forgot I have to email something out to a prof. tonight. I’ll just take it with me," he babbles. Sarah makes a surreptitious slicing motion across her throat at Veronica as the two of them exit.

She exchanges a glance with Logan. "Ok, Clive," she murmurs. "What are you hiding?"

*****

"You’re very…grand," Mac says, giving her best effort at a grand gesture before her hand flops back down to the floor. She’s lying on her back, knees bent, staring dreamily at the ceiling.

It turns out, when the electricity in an elevator gives up the ghost, the air conditioning doesn’t stick around either. Their little prison is rapidly heating up. She stripped down to her tank top an hour ago under Weevil’s interested eyes, and Weevil’s wifebeater is starting to stick to the bulk of his chest. It also turns out that while four swallows of tequila are enough to send Mac’s head buzzing, thirteen are enough to make her dizzy, befuddled, dreamy-happy drunk.

"I hope that’s a good thing," Weevil says congenially. He may not be slurring like her, but his mood has improved decidedly since they started drinking again.

"You’re like…the godfather," she says, trying to get her tongue around the words.

"I  _was_  like the godfather," he says pointedly. "Now I’m a free agent."

"Because they kicked you out," she giggles.

"Because I was done," he says firmly. "I am. Done."

She rolls herself up with some difficulty, possessed by a sudden, burning curiosity about the PCH bike club. She waits for the room to right itself before saying, "What did you  _do_?

"You mean that time I got stuck in an elevator with an alcoholic computer nerd?" In her hazy state, Mac can almost swear that’s affection in his eyes.

"With the PCHers. Veronica says you stole cars."

His mouth quirks. "Sometimes."

"Is that it? That’s a boring club," she says, infusing her voice with all the disdain she can muster. "Is that why you were in jail?"

His face shuts down completely and immediately. "No."

"Was it something really bad?"

"What is it with these repressed little fantasies? You should get out from behind that computer more often."

She takes umbrage to being called repressed. At least, she thinks she does. Then again, she’s more than halfway in love with Weevil right now, so maybe he can call her whatever he wants. It’s hard to make a decision with the room spinning. She closes her eyes and leans her head back against the wall, hoping it will go away.

"Yo.  _Hey_.Jose Cuervo. Mac."

She opens her eyes, and he’s right in front of her, snapping his fingers an inch away from her face. "You ok?" His eyes are concerned. "Shit. No passing out, you hear me?"

She squints at him. "You’ve got reeaaallly long eyelashes."

"So I’ve been told," he says, relieved. She reaches out to touch them, and he slaps her hand away. "Watch it. That’s a good way to lose a hand."

"It’s weird. They’re longer than mine. It’s kinda pretty."

"Jesus," he groans. "You tell anyone I let you get away with calling me pretty and we’re gonna have some serious problems. Your damn eyelashes are fine," he adds grumpily.

"Really?" The ghost of a compliment makes her heart do a little skip.

"Yes, really," he mocks her.

"Not as nice as yours." A tiny, sober corner of Mac’s brain realizes that carrying this topic one iota further is completely asinine, but she’s beyond controlling her mouth now.

He has a rueful twist to his lips, and he’s watching her in bemusement. "Maybe not. But I’m pretty sure you’d beat me out for the Miss Neptune title."

"I don’t think so. The 09ers don’t like me much," she confides.

"They have enough beauty queens," he says, looking away, and she wonders with a pang if he’s thinking of Lilly Kane.

And because her brain-to-mouth filter has long since lost the wrestling match with tequila and hormones, she says, "Are you thinking about Lilly Kane?"

He looks vaguely nauseous for a few seconds, but he recovers quickly. The levity in his voice is only slightly forced. "Lilly wasn’t the pageant type. That’s more Logan’s thing. And you’ve got him beat by a mile, trust me."

Her head is still pounding with the effort to keep her vision straight, but it’s very important she follow up on this point. That, she’s certain of. "Should I be flattered or pissed that you’re comparing me to Veronica’s boyfriend?"

"Ladies choice," he says easily. "And he’s not her boyfriend."

"But he  _is_ very pretty."

Oh, Weevil doesn’t like that. "If you like prissy white boys who think the world fucking stops every time they open their goddamn mouths," he growls.

She doesn’t want to talk about Logan. She gets back to the important stuff. "Do you really think I’m pretty? Or are you just being nice?" When she sobers up she’s going to want to hang herself for this, but right now she doesn’t care. She’s cramped and tired and drunk and all she wants for the moment is to hear Weevil Navarro saying nice things about her.

"What is this, a slumber party?" he asks edgily. "Find another therapist."

"No, I just – " She can see the tension in his thick shoulders, hear it in his voice. She’s tempted to keep pushing, but he’s already skittish enough, and she doesn’t want to spoil their momentary truce.

"Nevermind," she says, looking away. She tries to shove aside the sudden, irrational wave of disappointment. She shouldn’t feel like she’s just been slapped with a rejection notice, but she does. There’s no reason on earth Weevil should be attracted to her, except that she’s bizarrely, unmistakably attracted to him. She feels like she felt at the Neptune Grand, stupid and excited to lose her virginity to Cassidy Casablancas, when he couldn’t even stir up enough sexual interest in her to give it a go.

"Jesus, are you  _sulking_?" Weevil says, and he sounds pretty damn sulky himself. "All right. You’re the prettiest girl I ever got stuck in an elevator with. How’s that?"

She doesn’t look at him, but her heart starts beating a little faster. God, she shouldn’t care this much. Damn fucking biker. Stupid beautiful asshole. Why couldn’t she have gotten stuck in an elevator with someone just a little more like her? She can’t handle his dirty mouth and his dark eyes and the lazy movement of his blunt fingers without going all to pieces.

But she says, "Better," and her voice sounds small and plaintive and not like her at all. She hears him laugh shortly, but she gets the feeling he’s laughing at himself, and she’s not allowed in on the joke.

She turns her head and he’s looking at her. "You have nice hair," he says, finally. He won’t stop looking at her with inky black eyes, and she feels her cheeks start to heat up. He reaches out and takes one of her red-dyed strands. He wraps it through his fingers, weaving in and out around his hand, sliding it over his skin. She holds her breath as they both watch the strand unfurl. He’s a lot closer to her than she realized, an inch away from her body, and she can feel the brush of him across the tiny gap.

"Your skin, too," he says, and his voice is rough honey, coating her in warmth from the top of her head right on down the center of her body. "It looks soft," he murmurs. He reaches up again and touches her face, dragging a callused thumb across the skin of her cheek. She wonders briefly if maybe she passed out after all, and this is her tequila-induced dream. He strokes her cheek a few gentle times, brushes her forehead and her temples and her mouth, and her eyes drift shut at the feel of his hands on her.

"Now would be a really, really good time to kiss me" she whispers.

His hand falls away from her face. "Shit," he mutters. And he leans forward and puts his mouth against hers.  
 _  
Oh god._  She’s frozen for a second at the feel of his lips, warm, surprisingly soft against hers. His mouth is incredibly gentle, and his moustache is scratchy against her cheek, and can’t get her mind past the realization that he’s actually kissing her. She’s being kissed by  _Weevil Navarro_. She wraps her fingers behind his neck and kisses him back. He cups her face with both hands and deepens the kiss, just a little. He tastes like tequila, and she wants to kiss every remnant of that taste off his lips. And then keep kissing him for a couple more hours.

This is so different; this is so much better. Maybe it’s because she’s drunk, and maybe it’s because her world has shrunk to him and these walls in the last six hours, but she wishes this were her first kiss. She wants every kiss for the rest of her life to be like this: hot and dizzy and smooth and exotic. She wants every boy to smell like leather and have dark eagle eyes and press fistfuls of her hair against her neck. She wants to crawl into his lap and refuse to move until she gets tired of this feeling. Which will be never.

He doesn’t kiss anything like Cassidy. He isn’t full of shy humor and awkward hands. He kisses like he means it – like he’s done it a million times before, and he knows exactly where this is going, and he’s confident he can take her there. She’s confident he can get her there too, if the  _oh god_  feeling of his tongue stroking against hers is any indication.

She clutches at his sides to bring her flush against his cotton-covered chest, and he makes a frustrated sound in the back of his throat. He moves his mouth down to her neck, scraping over her skin with his teeth and following with the lick of his tongue, and she can’t help but squirm up against him. Then everything speeds up, and his rough hands are sliding up her back, and he’s somehow between her legs, and he’s pressing her into the wall so she can feel him hard against her stomach. She twists fingers in his shirt, barely recognizing the soft moans in the elevator as her own.

The way Weevil Navarro stops kissing her is deliberate and firm and such a counterpoint to her own internal chaos that she almost doesn’t realize it’s happening. He pulls his mouth away first, then his body, then his hands, until they’re two separate people again.  _Screw that_ , she thinks, and leans in again. He grabs her shoulders, a little harder than necessary, and she freezes. Then it sinks in that he’s stopping this. The best kiss of her life, and the only good thing that has come of this enforced imprisonment, and he’s ending it.

He’s shaking his head slightly, even though his eyes keep wandering down to her mouth. "This is a bad idea," he says, a breath away from her face. He forces a laugh, and it sounds like glass breaking. "Enclosed spaces, alcohol, too much free time. They screw with your brain."

"Right," she says numbly, and sits back.

He watches her go, regret on his face. "Right," he mutters.

She gazes at him mournfully as he retreats to his own side of the elevator and takes the flask with him. "Don’t look at me like that," he says warily. "No more tequila for you."

They eye each other for a few seconds before Mac has to look away. She’s not good at this. She hasn’t had any practice being casual with boys who keep dark secrets and kiss her so beautifully she wants to drown in it. Unless you count Cassidy, of course, and there was nothing casual about that. She closes her eyes and leans back against the wall, suddenly exhausted. She doesn’t want to think about this right now; there will be many, dismal, clear-headed days in the future to think about it, when she’s normal and sober and Weevil Navarro is not studying her from four feet away. The spinning from before has lessened, and all she wants to do is sleep in the drowsy heat of the elevator and make it go away. This whole day has been too bizarre to contemplate, and she’s half-expecting that when she wakes up it will all have been a dream.

Weevil doesn’t seem inclined to let her follow through with that plan. He knocks his foot against hers, jarring her whole body. "Don’t even think about it. I don’t sleep – you don’t sleep."

"So sleep," she mumbles. The spinning may have disappeared, but the nausea certainly isn’t going anywhere. She’s beginning to think Weevil was right with his puking predictions.

"I still have tequila," he says reasonably.

"I hope you two will be very happy together. I’m tired."

"I could tell you some bed time stories."

"Why does it sound like porn when you say it?" she grumbles, and the tension eases slightly. She sighs and straightens her spine. "Do you have any stories about the PCH bike club?"   
  
He rolls his eyes, but she sees the smile playing on his lips. She’s pretty sure it’s affection this time. "What do you want to know?"


	7. Chapter 6

Clive’s computer out of reach, and two hours to figure this out. Veronica rummages through every desk drawer, shakes out each book, and rips his sheets off the bed. Nothing. She’s standing in the middle of the desk, feeling her way along the top shelf when the door cracks open. She barely suppresses a shriek of surprise as Troy Vandegraff steps in, wearing nothing but his boxers and a shit-eating grin.

"They told me I could find you in here."

"They, being Wallace?"

"Is there another they? I’m surprised you don’t have him in here with you."

She turns her back on him, continuing to search. "His services are starting to cost me a fortune in baked goods. I decided I could handle one room."

"I love a girl who takes charge," he says admiringly.

She sighs. "What can I do for you, Troy? I’m in the middle of some very important B&E here."

"Just stopping by to see my favorite sleuth. Is this the great English Lit caper?"

"Done with your lady friend already?" she returns. "I’m going to guess the dancer in 805."

"Wow, the psychic powers are new. It must make this whole detective thing a hell of a lot easier."

"Psychic? Nah. I just looked for the combination of vacant eyes and -" She glances back at him and catches him ogling her exposed legs. "Seriously?"

He laughs. "I can’t help it if detectives are hot. Do you repay favors with conjugal visits, by any chance?"

She climbs down as gracefully as possible and gives his state of near-undress a pointed look. "Sorry," she says sweetly. "No shirt, no shoes, no service. Miss 805 must be getting lonely, though." His unrepentant grin doesn’t budge. "Did you come here for something in particular, or just for my general aggravation?"

"I saw Logan on his way out. I know Duncan took off, but Logan? That’s really scraping the bottom of the boyfriend barrel, sugar."

"He’s not my boyfriend," she says automatically.

"So then I can tell all my friends the cute blonde in East Lomita is available? And the obnoxious millionaire attached to her hip is no one?" His voice is patently disbelieving.

"I didn’t say that. Why are we having this conversation?"

"That’s my girl. Hostile to the last." He pinches her chin playfully. "Just offering some friendly advice. Logan isn’t really an open-ended kind of guy."

"If you’re going to be giving out romantic advice," Logan drawls from the doorway, "you know she’s going to start calling you ‘Dear Abby.’ Fair warning, T."

Troy takes his hand off of her chin. "Logan. Been a while."

Logan deliberately sets down the paper tray of coffee cups, steps between her and Troy, and parks himself next to her. "What brings you to Veronica’s dorm?"

"Just visiting a friend, same as you. Different friend," he adds hastily. Troy looks a little apprehensive, and she can’t blame him. Logan in powder-keg mode almost never ends well. Her own blood is starting to jangle in her veins with anxiety.

"Ok," she interjects brightly. "I love uncomfortable reunions as much as the next girl, but maybe we should save this for when I’m somewhat less engaged in an illegal search."

Troy takes a step backward. "Sounds like a plan."

Logan puts a hand on the back of her neck and starts rubbing a little harder than necessary. "No, I think we should catch up," he says smoothly. "How’s the steroid business going these days?" He puts his mouth a little closer to her ear, like they’re flirting instead of in the middle of a stare-down. "Is he your underworld connection now that Weevil’s a working _hombre_?"

Troy shifts uncomfortably. "Look Logan, that whole thing in Tijuana was just – "

"You almost got Luke killed," Logan says bluntly.

Logan has never expressed one iota of concern about Luke until this moment – a fact Veronica refrains from mentioning only because Logan is about ten different kinds of scary when he’s like this. His lips are twisted in that expression she hates; the one that looks like a smile but manages to have no warmth or happiness behind it whatsoever.  _Not my boyfriend,_ she tells herself a little desperately.

Troy seems far less concerned about the sensitivity of the situation, which she should have expected. "I’m sorry, I didn’t realize this was  _your_  high horse," he exclaims, full of false affability. "I had no idea you’d become such a boy scout. Because last I remember," his tone sharpens, "your backlog makes some steroids in a ceiling panel look like a field of fucking daisies."

Logan glares back at him. "I’m not trying to steal Veronica, Logan," he says forcefully. "Get a grip."

He turns to go, and Logan grabs his arm. She can feel his rage like a furnace against her body. "You even try it, and I’ll kill you," he says softly.

"Logan," she warns hoarsely. _Not my boyfriend, not my boyfriend, not my boyfriend…_

Troy stops, smirks, and takes a step back toward them. She’s suffocating, trapped between a charming liar and a ticking time bomb. Troy is the last person on earth that Logan should feel threatened by. This is stupid; this is  _so stupid_. But she’s afraid to reassure him; she’s afraid of getting a face full of shrapnel when he finally explodes.

"According to Veronica," Troy says pleasantly, "there’s no one to steal her from. A little tip from Dear Abby – when your girlfriend starts denying any attachment to you, you’ve got bigger problems than me."

Logan’s body snaps to new levels of rigid, and she has the feeling she’s about to be shoved aside in favor of a fistfight. "Troy, get out," she says desperately.

"With pleasure." Troy shakes Logan’s hand off his arm and shoots a tight smile in her direction. "Such a charmer. I can’t imagine why you two can’t work things out." He slams the door behind him.

The ensuing silence crackles around them. The walls are pressing in again; there aren’t enough excuses in the world to soothe Logan’s endless insecurities, to shake off the possessiveness he tosses around her like a cloak. She can still feel the muscles in Logan’s arm grid-locked along her back. She swallows, trying to keep her voice even. "Well, that was fun."

He slides his hand off her neck and, very casually, like taking a swig of coffee, slams it into Clive’s mirror. The glass shatters with a crash, exploding around them in pieces. She jumps back from him, shock pinging through her body.

"What the  _fuck_  are we doing here?" he says for the second time that day, turning furious eyes on her. "Why the hell am I finding you in an empty room with  _Troy_  hanging all over you when I can’t get a second of your time?"

Her entire body is trembling. "Logan, calm down."

"No," he shouts. "How long are we going to do this before you start trusting me?"

"You just went two rounds with a sheet of glass," she says shakily. "That’s not exactly warm and fuzzy."

He freezes. His knuckles, clenched at his sides, are starting to ooze blood from a dozen tiny cuts. "Tell me how I’m supposed to act right now. I love you," he says, and there’s a wild desperation in his eyes. "Give me  _something_."

She opens her mouth, but there are too many emotions and no way to shove them into the verbal cookie cutters that will make them both feel better. "I can’t do this right now," she says helplessly. "Go home and cool off, and we’ll talk about it later."

"Keep telling yourself that," he says bitterly, but he turns and walks out the door, almost slamming into Wallace in the process.

Wallace watches him stalk out, then peers at her. "You ok?"

"I’m fine," she says tonelessly, when she’s really not. She’s angry; she’s  _furious_  because every time she thinks they’ve hit an even keel he erupts and overturns the whole thing again. She’s terrified, because it’s Logan, and it doesn’t matter how much she loves him. It doesn’t matter if he saves her life a thousand times over – he’ll never be stable and normal and anything close to what she needs. Troy’s words come winging back to her, disturbing in their accuracy.  _"…your backlog makes some steroids in a ceiling panel look like a field of fucking daisies."_

And then it hits her: an image of Troy in a bathroom outside Tijuana, hiding his drugs. In a ceiling panel.

*****

Weevil won’t stop laughing. He’s not smirking, he’s not giggling, he’s full-out, rolling on the floor, clutching his stomach, laughing. She’s sobered up considerably since he cut her off – enough that her head has started pounding so hard she can feel the walls expanding and contracting around her. She would auction off her parents’ retirement fund for a bottle of water, and she’s never had to pee so badly in her life. All in all, she decides that getting drunk in an elevator is not worth the aftermath.

No matter how much Weevil drinks, he doesn’t lose control. His movements never get sloppy, his shoulders never relax, and he doesn’t slur. In fact, she can’t really tell the difference between sober Weevil and drunk Weevil at all, except that his eyelids are at half-mast and the grins are coming a lot more freely. She would have pegged him as an angry drunk; it seems he’s a happy drunk instead. Great.

"I wouldn’t have said anything if I knew you’d freak out about it," she says irritably.

"You," he gasps, "and  _Madison Sinclair_. Holy shit. It’s too much. You…in a cheerleading uniform..."

"I would never be a cheerleader."

"You’d be Madison fucking Sinclair. And she’d be Mac - " he frowns. "What’s your last name?"

"That is my last name. My first name is Cindy."

That sets him off all over again.

"Well, what kind of a name is Weevil?" she snaps. "Is that another gang-protected secret?"

He shrugs, still chuckling. "My cousins call me that. It stuck."

"Nice. Very macho."

"Why are your panties in a twist now?"

"You promised me PCH stories. Every time you get started on something interesting you clam up. I’m starting to think your little club is a joke."

"Keep thinking that," he says without a trace of humor, which just drives her curiosity to new levels of torturous. "I don’t want to talk about it, and I guarantee you don’t want to know."

"Okay dad."

"What is it with these morbid questions, huh?" His face is distasteful, like he might not like her very much at the moment.

She shrugs. "I don’t know. It’s just…you’re interesting."

He laughs bitterly. "Interesting," he repeats. "You think having to look for a knife in your back every second is interesting? You think watching your friends die is interesting?"

She inhales sharply. She was expecting to hear about motorcycle stories and outsmarting Principal Clemmons, secret meetings and initiations and rituals. She wasn’t trying to pull his own personal tragedies down around him.

"Sorry," she says in a small voice.

But now that he’s started talking, he doesn’t seem inclined to stop. "You want to know what it’s like? You want to know why I was in jail?" He can almost certainly tell from the look on her face that she doesn’t, but he keeps going, driven by anger and alcohol and a life that’s been much harder than it should have to be.

"I  _killed_  someone," he says, coldly casual. "Are you still interested?"

For a second she can’t breathe – can’t talk, can’t move, can’t blink. Murder. She had almost convinced herself that he was harmless, that he was all bark. But the menace has returned to his face, that pit bull viciousness, and all she can think is: _not again._

Because she looks at him, and she’s still not scared. She looks at him and sees that she was kissing him an hour ago, that he’s been talking and drinking and laughing with her all day. She’s already making excuses for him in her head, telling herself that Veronica trusts him, and that it must have been self-defense, and that he’s reformed now. That he’s fluffy and shiny and new.

But none of that is true, except for the part about Veronica, and sometimes when Mac looks at Veronica she gets a glimpse of something so deep and ruthless that it gives her chills. And she is suddenly in so very far over her head.

He’s carefully watching her face. "Shouldn’t you be clutching your pearls or something?" he asks with grim humor.

She pulls a long, steady breath into her lungs before saying, "It takes a little more to shock me these days. Did Veronica get you out of jail?"

"What do you think?"

"Then she didn’t – "

"She knew."

Mac takes a second to collect herself, to scold herself for being so fucking naïve. "Then why – "

"I guess she has a soft spot for me," he says darkly. "And – oh yeah – she knew I’d be in her debt for the rest of my life, so she can snap her fingers at me whenever she wants." The volume of his voice rises with each word. "And then I can get stuck in elevators with needy little computer nerds who ask too many  _fucking_ questions for their own  _fucking_  good!"

If she trusted her voice, she would ask him what the hell he’s so upset about. She’s trapped in with a murderer, and he thinks  _he’s_ the victim in this scenario?

He’s still searching her eyes. "I didn’t do it myself," he mutters, and she wants to block her ears so she doesn’t have to hear any more of this. "I set him up for someone else to do. I  _tried_  to do it Veronica’s way. I tried to go to Lamb, but he – that _fucking prick_  - " he stops, choking.

He leans his head back against the wall, his face contorted, and she has the insane urge to tell him it’s all right. It’s not all right – it’s violent and scary and ruthless, and anyone who can take the life of another human being is not poor and misunderstood, no matter how much she wants him to be.

He looks at her again, studies her face for a second. He must not like what he sees, because he curses sharply and looks away. "I told you not to ask," he says in a low voice. She still doesn’t answer, and the air in the elevator thickens until she can barely breathe. She doesn’t know what to say. "It’s all right?" "I’m sure you had your reasons?" "Hey, at least you’re a good kisser and, by the way – are you thinking of maybe killing me too?"

He rolls to his feet in a burst of agitation, and she flinches at the sudden movement. His face hardens even further. "I thought violence turned you on," he says mockingly. "I have a while to go to catch up to all the blood on your last boyfriend’s hands."

For a second the pain is so sharp she can’t move. She should have expected it. She’s been condemning him with her eyes for the past five minutes; she should have known he’d turn on her. But every self-loathing thought she’s had since graduation night is summed up in Weevil’s scornful expression, and it’s almost more than she can take. In the last six months she’s spent torturous nights lying awake, going over every interaction she ever had with Beaver. She’s wasted hours searching for clues that she missed, wondering why the hell she never figured it out, and why the  _hell_  she still misses him. There must have been a million signals along the way, but she’s not Veronica; when she thinks about Beaver she can’t piece it together like a puzzle – all she can see is his smile and all she can feel is devastated.

"You’re right," she says, strangled, and the anger immediately drops from his face. "It’s true. You know, I was in love with him?" She laughs, and she can’t stop an edge of hysteria from creeping in. "God, I was so stupid. He was planning mass murders while I was worried about losing my stupid virginity."

His face has gone blank. "Is that the way it went?" he asks, almost casual.

"Yes," she says shortly, because she’s pretty sure she’s already reached the limits of her humiliation. "But that wasn’t really in his plan for the night. See, he had important business on the roof, what with torturing and trying to kill Veronica, and so he left me there after – " She stops, breathing hard. This is further than she’s ever gone with this part of the story, and she wants to get it out. She needs it out of her system – it’s poison while it’s still in her – but she can’t say it out loud. She hits a wall every time.

"After what?" Weevil asks tightly.

"Never mind."

"After  _what_?" he says more forcefully. He’s the one looking nauseous now, and she feels a malicious lick of satisfaction. "If that fucking asswipe – "

"He didn’t rape me," Mac says calmly, reading his speculation all over his face. She’s answered this question before. Veronica asked it, in tears. The police asked it. Her parents asked it.  _No, he did not_ , she tells them every single time. What she doesn’t say is the unthinkable, awful, horrifying truth: she almost wishes he had. It’s wrong, and it’s terrible, and she’s going to hell for even letting that thought into her brain, but the truth is? There are support groups for rape victims. There are doctors and lawsuits and psychiatrists to coo over you and tell you it’s not your fault and make you whole again.

There are no support groups for someone who falls in love with murderers. There’s no network of specialists for girls who are discarded and humiliated and left naked and shell-shocked on the floor of the hotel room, wondering if they were abandoned because somehow they didn’t measure up. If everything he ever told you was some kind of sick joke. There’s no one to help you get over it when you still picture the shy duck of his head and it makes you ache.

"He didn’t do anything to me," Mac continues evenly, because now that she’s started, the story is all broken and jagged inside of her, and if it doesn’t all come out it will rub even worse. "We tried to, but he, uh, he couldn’t." Weevil’s face is a mix of horror and pity – every boy’s nightmare. Cassidy’s, too. "I went to take a shower and, apparently, he thought that would be enough time to pop up to the roof for some gun play."

Weevil looks sickened, and angry, and a million other emotions she’s seen on people’s faces since that night. She forces the trembling words out, starting to wish she hadn’t opened her mouth in the first place. "When I – uh – when I got out he was gone. Had taken everything. There were no towels, no bed sheets…he took my clothes, and, uh, and my purse, and just…left me there."

Of all the atrocities Cassidy Casablancas committed, taking her clothes doesn’t even make the headlines. But it’s the only part of that night that’s real to her. When she thinks about Beaver - the murderer, the rapist - all she can feel is the plastic shower curtain chafing her skin as she huddled in the corner, freezing and shocked. In her mind everything is reduced to those silent, ticking minutes between the realization she’d been abandoned and Veronica bursting into the room in a flurry of tears.

"He  _what_?" Weevil barks, startling her. He braces his hand against the wall like he’s steadying himself. "He took your – he _left_ you there? What the – mother _fucking_  little asswipe. What the  _hell_  – " He seems to expand with anger, harden and clench until she can almost feel the elevator shaking with his fury. She watches in shock as he slams his fist against the wall a few times, then hurls his flask into the corner with a savage clang. "Little bitch is  _lucky_  he’s dead. Sick little  _piece_  of _shit_." He hits the wall one more time and then kicks it for good measure, leaving a boot-sized dent in the metal.

Something inside her snaps, and she starts to cry.

She’s been frozen for six months. She’s needed to swear and break things, and now Weevil’s done it for her, and she can only cry and cry and cry as it all drains out.

"Shit," he says, appalled. She wants to tell him she’s ok – that it’s good, really – but she’s choking on her own tears. He kneels down in front of her. "I’m sorry. Jesus, don’t cry. I - Shit."

He’s pulling her into his hard chest with his arms, and she awkwardly goes, because he finally got this ugly thing out of her and she doesn’t care what else he’s done – he’s the only comfort she’s had since the whole ordeal began. "Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit," he saying under his breath, a litany to calm himself and her, and "Shh, hey it’s ok. I’m sorry."

She doesn’t think about the fact that he’s still a stranger, and she doesn’t think about the fact that he murdered somebody. The only inane thought that goes through her mind, as she soaks his shirt with tears, is that he lied earlier, and this is the second apology she’s gotten from him today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so this is pretty much the end of the line for L/V in this story. The next chapters are spent solving the case and cleaning things up between Mac and Weevil. Logan appears again in the last chapter, but it's told from Mac's POV, and it's of the "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" variety. I don't want to give too much of the story away, but I felt like I owed a warning to those people just following this for the LoVe.
> 
> I realize this may elicit feelings of RAGE in some readers. If you are a victim of said RAGE, please consider this a preemptive apology. L/V is my first love, but I won't be following their exploits any more in this particular fic. Sorry!


	8. Chapter 7

By the time 8PM rolls around, Veronica has arranged herself comfortably on Mark’s bed, feet resting smack dab in the middle of his pillow. She originally planned for Wallace to join in the accusatory fun, but he left the room in disgust after he caught her gaze lingering over Clive’s cracked mirror for the third time.

"I don’t know why you don't just call him," Wallace groaned. "You can fix this."

"There’s nothing to fix," she said calmly. "Logan’s the one who broke the mirror."

His face darkened. "Stop being so stubborn and call him," he ordered. "I don't want to listen to you whine all week."

She would have said something very clever and cutting in response – maybe some bald-face lie about how Logan didn’t bother her enough to make her whine – but she was interrupted by the door slamming behind him. Which meant she was on her own for this one.

And if she’s checked her cell phone eight times in the last half hour for new messages, well, Wallace never has to know. She can’t stop seeing Logan’s hand in her mind, taut and bleeding, and she wonders if he even thought to clean and bandage it. She wonders if he’s out, drinking and brooding and finding other girls to flirt with who don’t repeatedly push him away.

Finding other girls to sleep with.

That thought has her ripping her cell phone out of her pocket and dialing his number. And then hanging up. And then dialing again. And then throwing her cell phone at the wall in an act of supreme defiance. And then retrieving the phone off the floor, thanking her lucky stars that Wallace left before he could witness her in the throes of Echolls-induced insanity. She’d never hear the end of it. She’s flipping through a printed copy of Clive’s paper in a desperate effort to occupy herself when Mark finally walks in. This, at least, should be distracting.

"So Mark," she begins conversationally, "I’ve been reading Clive’s paper and I gotta say – I think you could learn a thing or two from him. Of course, I doubt he’ll agree to tutor you after this." He blinks at her from behind his glasses. She presses on. "I hope you’re coming back from somewhere fun, because it’s the last memory of Hearst you’ll ever have before you get kicked out for cheating."

That seems to spur him into action. He walks the rest of the way to his desk and drops his book bag casually. "Man, for a second there I thought I was in my own naughty schoolteacher fantasy."

"Don’t be silly. You and I both know you’re preferred choice of pornography is  _Cyber Hottie_ ," she says, pointing at the cabinet hiding the stack of magazines she discovered earlier. His mouth tightens a fraction, and she grins. "Let me introduce myself. I’m –"

"Veronica Mars," he cuts in, unimpressed. "I know. Can I assume Clive hired you to find his ‘stolen paper’?" He puts finger quotes around the words.

She can’t tamp down on a spurt of admiration. Cool under fire. She likes that. It was a shame he wouldn’t be around much longer. "You seem awfully glib for someone whose future is community college and working the Sac ‘n Pac," she remarks.

He shrugs and starts unloading his books. "Yeah, he accused me of taking it a couple days ago. Something about me being jealous of his academic prowess, or whatever. I would be nervous, if I had actually taken the paper, but I didn’t."

"Whew," Veronica says, in enormous relief. "That’s great. Of course, that doesn’t explain why I found the disk in a loose ceiling board in your closet."

He freezes. "What?"

"Are you sure you have nothing to confess?" she asks sweetly.

"Look, I didn’t steal that paper," he says wildly. "Clive accused me two days ago, and I  _told_  him I didn’t do it. I already wrote my own paper. It’s on my computer. Look, I’ll show you," he says, reaching to type his password.

"Don’t bother," she interrupts him. "I already looked."

He’s momentarily nonplussed. "You got into my computer?"

"I know – I impress myself, too. Let’s pretend for a second that I believe you – which, by the way, I don’t. Why would Clive think you took it? And how did it get in your closet?"

"We don’t exactly get along," Mark says darkly. "He’s already tried to get me kicked out of the dorm once by accusing me of stealing from him."

"Clearly the attempt was unsuccessful."

Mark shrugs. "He didn’t have any proof, because  _I didn’t do it_. I guess he hired you to get proof this time."

Veronica starts. "Are you saying he set you up? Why would he do that?"

Mark looks more irritated than anything else. "I caught him selling dope out of our room at the beginning of the semester. I told him I’d turn him in if he didn’t stop. He freaked."

Veronica wants to strangle someone. Someone skinny and blond with a radio-announcer voice. "You’re telling me this is all because of drugs."

"Look, I couldn’t care less what he does with his time, as long as he doesn’t get my ass in trouble, too." He’s shoving books into place on his shelf, but she can see the tense line of his shoulders. If she’s learned anything from working for her father, it’s how to spot a liar. When a good liar knows that someone is on to them, they don’t get tense, they get casual. Too casual. Mark is either a very bad liar, or he’s telling the truth.

She has the sinking feeling that she’s not going to get her fee either way.

"He almost fainted when I told him I got into your computer," she remembers suddenly. "He thinks you have proof on there, doesn’t he? But I looked. There’s nothing."

Mark looks embarrassed. "I kind of…lied and told him I had proof on there." He takes in her scowl. "It was the only way I could think of to get him to stop!" And suddenly the multi-layer security system makes sense. She wonders when she’ll finally learn that  _everyone_  has secrets. Even smarmy EE majors and innocuous computer nerds.

"How do I know you’re not lying now?" she asks flatly. "If you don’t want me to turn youin, you’re going to have to do a little more to convince me."

"Don’t you think I would if I could?" He throws his hands up. "But he’s too careful. I’ve broken into his computer, but the only thing I could find was some weird spreadsheet thing with all these random numbers. There’s nothing directly incriminating, and I’ve never been able to figure out where he keeps the drugs. I know what he’s doing, but," he shrugs helplessly, "no proof."

She’s starting to hate Clive more by the second. Stealing a roommate’s paper – low. Trying to get a roommate kicked out of school to protect your illegal drug trade – scraping the asphalt of hell.

"He’s the one trying to get me kicked out," Mark insists, "not the other way around. I just don’t want to get busted for possession because of his extracurricular habits. I can’t prove it to you, I can’t prove it to the administration, but I’m telling the truth."

She studies him, deliberating. "What if I could find the drugs?" she asks finally.

"Then we could go to the administration. No more Clive."

Veronica has a grim thought. "I’m not sure that will be enough. It might be difficult to get him kicked out with all his father’s connections." Mark looks at her blankly. "His father," she hedges. "Working for university housing?"

Mark smiles slowly. "Is that what he told you his dad does? Well, I guess you could say he works for housing. His company does the elevator installation and repair for all the dorms in Hearst."

She snaps to attention. "Elevators? Are you sure?"

"Positive. He works part time for the company. He’s always bragging that he could fix an elevator in his sleep. It’s practically one of his pick-up lines." Mark eyes her frozen features curiously. "Now you know who to blame for having to trek up and down the stairs all day."

Bingo. Her jaw snaps tight. "I know exactly who to blame. And I may be able to get you the proof you’re looking for."

*****

Mac drifts awake to the sound of the emergency phone beeping and the feel of Weevil’s hands trailing lightly through her hair. She’s curled up on the floor next to him with her head on his hard thigh, and she can feel him gently lifting pieces of her hair and letting the strands filter through his fingers.

His body stretches under her as he reaches for the phone. " ‘lo?" His voice is hoarse. "Yeah, we’re still alive. What’s happening? What?" He tenses a little, and she sits up, rubbing her face. Her eyes feel gritty, and she has a headache from too much alcohol and too many tears. He watches her intently, despite the phone pressed up against his ear.

"What’s going on?" she asks, and her voice sounds as rusty as his.

"Hold on." He hands the phone off to her and starts prodding at the ceiling panels, pressing lightly. She can still feel the ghost of those hands on her scalp, and she shivers a little. "Tell Veronica none of them are loose."

"I heard him." Veronica’s voice comes through the receiver. "Tell him he’s going to have to break his way in somehow."

"You have to break your way in," Mac says to Weevil, confused. "What’s going on?"

She almost jumps out of her skin when he buries a hand in her hair and pulls out her hairpin. Her front layers come tumbling down around her face. Weevil reaches up and starts fiddling with the fastenings holding the panels in place. It takes him less than a minute to lift the panel down. He grins at the admiration on her face.

"Hey, we all got our talents." He feels along the edges of the square opening for a few seconds…and pulls down a white, paper-wrapped package. He stares down at it, shaking his head. "Tell her it’s here."

"It’s here," Mac says impatiently into the receiver. "What the hell is  _it_?"

"Drug dealers and ceiling panels," Veronica says, satisfied. "Do you know, we could control drug trafficking in this country with a little interior remodeling?"

"These are drugs? Who – "

"Check one more thing for me," Veronica interrupts. "Is there a logo anywhere? Maybe on the button panel? Anything with the name of the elevator company?"

"Cressley and Co.," Mac reads the gold-plated insignia.

"What did she say?" Mac jumps at Weevil’s voice right next to her ear.

"I don’t know. What the hell is going on up there?"

"Ooh, Mac," Veronica starts eagerly. "Clive is even worse than you thought. I know it’s hard to imagine, but –"

The line goes dead. Mac looks at the phone, perplexed. "What the - " The lights flicker off completely, then back onto full power, glaringly bright after eight hours of dim shadows. The air conditioning comes back on with a hum. And the elevator shudders as it begins moving slowly upward.


	9. Chapter 8

Veronica passes the elevator workmen on their way out as she bolts up the stairs. She skids to a stop in front of the elevator, panting, just as the doors slide open. Mac looks like a drowned puppy. Her hair is a mess, her eyeliner is smudged, and her tank top looks like she’s been wearing it for three days straight. Weevil just stands next to her, holding the drugs, silent and inscrutable as always. The ground around them is littered with change, wrappers, playing cards, and discarded clothing.

"Welcome back," Veronica says, smiling. "I hope you had a pleasant –" She jerks her head back as the stench of tequila hits her. "I wasn’t aware this elevator stopped in Tijuana."

"Next time we’ll lock you in," Weevil growls. "Then we can talk." He shoves the drugs into her arms. Mac gives her a silent death glare.

"Hi. I’m Mark." Mark pipes up from behind her.

"Hi Mark," Mac says grimly. "I’m exhausted, and cramped, and I’ll never be able to set foot in an elevator for as long as I live. Your English paper ruined my life. Maybe I’ll see you around some time." She brushes past Veronica and heads for the stairs. "Wait!" Veronica calls. "Do you really want to miss seeing Clive go down?"

"I’ll live," she answers without turning around.

"I have coffee," she says tantalizingly. Mac stops walking. Then she turns around and heads back.

"I hate you," she says. But she follows Mark into his room.

*****

"This coffee’s freezing," Mac says, making a face as she sets down one of the cups Logan left almost two hours ago.

"You said you wanted caffeine. You didn’t specify temperature," Veronica says absently, doing her best not to look in the direction of Clive’s mirror. She can see Wallace frowning at her from the corner of her eye, and she tries to smooth out her expression. She lured him back with a promise to stop mooning over Logan and an assurance that he’d get to see Clive squirm, but he’s been watching her like a hawk ever since.

"When is this guy showing up?" Weevil groans. "My grandmother already bitched me out for leaving the cousins alone."

"Shouldn’t be too much longer. They’ve been gone over two hours." She looks at him curiously. "I think we have sufficient dirt to scare the shit out of this kid for life. You don’t have to hang around." Weevil doesn’t answer. Strangely, he shoots a moody glance at Mac.

"That’s amazing," Mark’s saying to her. "I would have never thought of doing it that way. I thought my system was completely secure."

Mac smiles like the cat that got the cream. "I’ve had some experience."

Mark’s returning smile is just a little shy. "Hey, are you in my Thursday night section? I think I’ve seen you there a couple times."

"For Murphy’ class, right? I needed the TA go over the new patterns with me again. Murphy talks too fast to process."

"I know, right?" Mark says warmly. "It’s like the room will self-destruct if she doesn’t finish the chapter at warp speed."

Weevil is glowering at them. "I’m still not convinced this kid had nothing to with it." He says suddenly. He stands up, towering menacingly over Mark. "How do we know the stash isn’t his?"

Mark raises his hands nervously. "I thought I was in the clear."

"You are," Veronica says firmly. "Weevil, it’s not him."

Weevil doesn’t budge. "I think him and me should have a one-on-one chat out back, just to make sure."

"Weevil," Veronica says blankly, "you can  _go_  now. We don’t need you to do this." Weevil settles himself back on the bed, arms crossed, still pinning a terrified Mark to his desk chair with a piercing glare.

"I’ll stay," he says darkly. "Just in case." Veronica shoots Wallace a mystified look. Wallace mouths " _crazy_ " in return.

Clive opens the door, whistling, and stops short when he sees the five of them perched on various surfaces around the room. "Hi Clive," Veronica chirps. For the first time that day he looks worried.

"Hi," he says. "What happened to my mirror?"

"Least of your problems, man," Wallace advises him.

"I read your paper," Veronica continues cheerfully. "I can see why you’re doing so well in English. You’ve got a way with words. So here’s a new one for you: frame-up."

His face pales a little, but he responds haughtily, "I have no idea what you’re talking about."

"I understand the confusion," she continues. "That was one complicated plan you hatched. Too bad I’m such a nosy little thing. And I have this aversion to ruining the lives of innocent people. Your life, on the other hand, definitely needs some shaking up."

He lifts his chin. "I’m not paying you to be all cryptic and bitchy. Tell me what you found."

"Oh man," Wallace moans. "You’re going to regret that."

"Lesson One," Veronica says sharply. "When your roommate catches you dealing drugs, there are better ways to get him out of your hair than framing him for cheating. Like stopping. Lesson Two: if you’re going to hire a PI to help you frame him, don’t lie so damn much. It raises a few red flags. Lesson Three: find a new hiding place. When the drugs and the disk are hidden in the exact same way, I tend to conclude they were hidden by the same exact same person."

Weevil tosses the drugs at Clive, and he catches them, staring down at them with a horrified expression on his face. Veronica feels a sliver of triumph infiltrating her anger. Sometimes wasted time is worth it.

Clive takes a bracing breath. "It took you long enough to find the disk," he sneers. "You’re not a very good PI, are you? There’s no way you can prove these are mine."

"See, I think you’re wrong," Veronica counters pleasantly. "I think we’ll be able to prove a lot by taking a look at your computer. Earlier today, when I told you Mac was on her way, I assumed you turned as white as a ghost because she bitched you out last weekend. But it was actually because of the computer, wasn’t it?" He’s silent, but Veronica can see the " _oh shit_ " in his eyes.

"You have something on that computer," she continues. "Something you didn’t want me to see." Clive is beginning to look like a cornered rabbit, which fits. She’s feeling pretty predatory at the moment.

"Now, here’s the part that really pisses me off," she says softly. "When you left my room, you decided to do a little elevator re-wiring on the circuit board that your father installed. Take the family knowledge, combine it with what you’ve learned in your engineering classes, and you knew  _exactly_  which wires to cross to stop that elevator dead. No access to the computer – problem solved." She pauses. "Except you’re a  _moron_. You trapped them in with your drugs – not smart. Not to mention – in trying to stall Mac, you also ruined Weevil’s day, and I don’t think he’s too happy about it."

Weevil gets up and silently approaches Clive. He takes a nervous step backwards, but Weevil merely lifts the laptop bag off of his shoulder and passes it off to Mac.

"You can’t do this," Clive says nervously. "That’s my property."

"Shut up, Clive," Mark says derisively.

Between Mac and Mark it takes under three minutes to break into the computer. "Well, his paper wasn’t stolen. It’s here," Mac says scornfully.

Mark squints a little at the screen. "That’s it. That’s the spreadsheet I was talking about."

"It looks like it’s in some sort of code," Mac says, wrinkling up her forehead. "But I’m not sure…"

Weevil leans over her, peering at the computer, and Veronica catches the way Mac goes still. "It’s a drop-off schedule," he says. "Basic set-up." He runs his finger down one column. "Times, prices, customer codes. Not a bad thing he had going, here," he concedes. "What?" he says, off of Veronica’s glower.

"Delete the paper," Veronica orders sweetly. "He has eight hours to write a new one. And email the list to me. Wallace too, just in case."

She turns back to Clive, who’s seething helplessly. "This is over," she tells him. "We could have turned you in, but we’re giving you second chance to be smart. Stop dealing out of the room, and leave Mark alone. You try and get him kicked out again, we’ll bring everything to the administration."

"Fuck you," he says succinctly.

"And you said he’s  _not_  failing out?" Mac asks distastefully, closing his laptop with a snap.

"Shut up," Clive sneers, lashing out. "You think you were the best thing there at that party? I only hit on you because you so obviously needed to get laid, you stupid little bi- "

Weevil picks him up and slams him against the wall, holding him there in a pressing grip. "You know what I hate most about rich kids?" he says through clenched teeth. "No manners. Apologize."

Veronica looks at Mac, open mouthed. Mac’s blue eyes are lit with surprise and caution and…gratitude, like Weevil just went down on bended knee and handed her a tulip.

"I’m sorry," chokes Clive, twisting like a worm on a hook. "I’m sorry."

Weevil tilts his head, considering Clive. "I’m not convinced."

"I think he gets it," Wallace says nervously.

"Weevil," Mac says quietly. "It’s fine."

Weevil lets Clive go, and he slides down the wall, almost buckling when he hits the ground. "It doesn’t matter whether you like it," Veronica says coldly. "That’s the deal. You try to screw with Mark again, and I’ll make it my personal mission to get you kicked out. Got it?"

Clive grimaces, rubbing the spot where Weevil twisted his shirt against his throat. "Got it."


	10. Epilogue

Mark follows them all back to Veronica’s room, watching in satisfaction as Veronica dumps the drugs in her sink and washes them down the drain. "I don’t want to look at him right now if I don’t have to," he confesses to Mac, seating himself next to her on Veronica’s bed. She likes him. He’s just a little taller than her, and he has glasses and brown hair and hazel eyes that are actually very pretty. He’s been talking to her about computers and classes and simple, normal things since she walked out of the elevator, and the internal cracks of the last eight hours are starting to meld together. It’s nice to realize she’s not permanently broken.

That doesn’t mean she’s forgotten about Weevil and his mouth and his dark eyes and his violent past.

"I’m sorry about Clive," Mark continues tentatively. "He’s an ass."

Mac smiles. "Yeah. It’s not your fault."

Mark fidgets. "I was thinking…maybe we could get coffee sometime? Like, after class next week?"

Mac pauses. She can feel Weevil’s eyes like a hand on the back of her neck, watching them from the doorway.

"Unless you have a boyfriend," Mark says hurriedly.

"Um…no. Lamentably single…" she lets her voice trail off, unsure why she’s hesitating. Mark likes her. He’s been shooting her admiring glances for two hours now, and he seems sweet and smart, and she would bet ten to one that he’s never arranged a murder or blown up a bus. She looks to Veronica for help, but she and Wallace are busy poring over Clive’s spreadsheet on the computer.

"Never mind," Mark says reluctantly.

"No!" she says. "No, I – I think we should. That would be fun." Out of the corner of her eye she sees Weevil’s dark figure shove through the door and out of the room.

"Nice. Ok." Mark’s grin is huge and relieved, and Mac tries to feel excited. She just feels drained.

Veronica lifts her head curiously. "Where did Weevil go?"

"Who gives a rat’s ass?" Wallace groans. "I’m  _starving_."

"I’m shocked," Veronica deadpans.

"Oh no," Wallace says, shaking his head. "I wasted my whole day here and we didn’t even get paid. You do  _not_  get to bust me right now."

Veronica holds her hands up. "Cease fire. I’m starving too. I think the pizza place down the street is open until midnight." Mac’s stomach starts rumbling at the thought of pizza. She hasn’t eaten anything since breakfast, and that may as well have been days ago.

"I’m game," she says wearily. "But we’re taking the stairs."

Veronica sends her a concerned glance as they make their way down to the parking lot. "Are you ok?"

"I’m not sure you want to ask me that right now."

"I’m sorry," Veronica says, and she looks repentant enough that Mac believes her. "Did something…happen…in there with Weevil?" she asks carefully.

"Eight hours in an elevator," Mac answers, avoiding Veronica’s eyes. "We chose to bond rather than kill each other."

"I get that, it’s just…. Weevil’s usually pretty even-tempered. He’s good to have in a sticky situation, but the way he threw Clive against that wall…"

Mac’s throat jams for a second, remembering the leashed violence inherent in that act. It was ninety-nine percent terrifying and one teeny tiny guilty percent exhilarating. She forces a matter-of-fact tone. "Clive would drive anyone to violence."

"True," Veronica says quietly, but her eyes are alarmingly unconvinced.

The first thing Mac sees when they spill out into the open-air parking lot is Logan Echolls, leaning against his neon monstrosity of a vehicle. Veronica looks sharply at Wallace.

"I called him," Wallace says. "I’m sick of your mopey face."

Veronica fights for an exasperated expression for a second, only to lose the battle to tenderness when she glances back at Logan. "Uh…give me a second."

Mac watches her walk up to her sometimes-maybe-not-boyfriend, realizing, as she always does when she sees them together, how close Beaver came to killing one or both of them. Logan has a bandage on one of his hands, and Veronica picks it up gently, running her fingers over the cloth. He touches her cheek, and Mac can’t hear what he’s saying, but she can see the emotion in his eyes clear across the parking lot. It takes about three seconds for her arms to go around him and for him to bury his face in her hair. Mac looks away, feeling like an intruder.

Wallace tugs on her sleeve. "Uh, Mac?" She turns, and Weevil is parked by the corner of Veronica’s building, sitting on his bike and doing his crossed-arm penetrating-stare specialty. Mac looks at Wallace helplessly.

He takes a step back, holding up his hands. "Nope."

Weevil’s expression doesn’t soften at all as she approaches him. "Veronica’s a little – "

"I’m not waiting for her."

"Oh." They’re not in an elevator anymore, which seems like it should open up a whole new world of conversational possibilities, but she can’t think of a single thing to say. He’s all covered up in his leather jacket again, distant and frowning and inaccessible. He’s the kid who cut a swath through the halls every day in high school, five ever-present lackeys trailing behind him.

"This is yours." He reaches into his jacket pocket and drops the crumpled hairpin he used to remove the ceiling panel into her palm.

"Um…thanks."

"Well, it didn’t go with my outfit."

She doesn’t know what to do with her arms, so she crosses them in front of her. Then uncrosses them. Then sticks her hands in her pockets. He watches her but doesn’t say anything, and she feels inexplicably let down. "Well, uh, ok. See you." She turns to go.

He clears his throat. "You need a ride? You know…anywhere?"

She eyes his bike. She’s always categorized motorcycles as somewhere in between cheesy and deathtrap. With Weevil sitting there, it suddenly looks very tempting. She takes a physical step back, because there’s no way that letting Weevil drive her home is a good idea. Aside from the apoplectic fit her mother would have, she prefers to steer clear of addictive substances. And she has a feeling that pressing flush against Weevil’s back with the wind whipping through her hair could get very, very addictive.

"No," she says trying to sound firm. It comes out wistful. She waves a hand at her green bug parked a few spaces away. "No, I have a ride."

"You drive that thing? In public?" he asks, scandalized.

She bristles. "Well, it’s better than cruising around Neptune pretending you’re one of Hell’s Angels."

"There’s no pretending to it, babe."

"So I’ve heard," she says evenly, and it slams them right back into that place, that dangerous, intimate, needy place. His eyes are very dark and soulful in the tall parking lot streetlights. She wonders if he’s regretting revealing so much to her. The truth is, she told him the darkest secret of her life, and maybe learned his in return, and they don’t even know the most basic details about each other. She can’t stop staring at the stern curve of his mouth. She’s already spinning fantasies in her head, a million scenarios that all end in him putting that mouth on hers again. But she’s smart enough to know that hoping for any sort of relationship with Eli Navarro is absurd and impossible.

He shoots a brooding glance over her shoulder at Wallace and Mark sitting on the curb. "You really gonna go out with that kid? Mark?" The name sounds like it tastes bad on his tongue.

She shrugs. "I guess. I mean, why wouldn’t I?"

A smile touches his face. "He doesn’t look like the type to carry tequila. What if he won’t share with you?"

"Will you?" she asks him calmly, and it has nothing to do with alcohol.

His beautiful mouth draws tight, and that’s her answer. It’s not like she was expecting something else. She never thought she’d want to get back in that elevator so badly.

"I have to go," she says reluctantly. "We’re going to eat, unless…" She gives her daydream one last lingering moment. "Do you want to come?"

He smiles with some pity in his face, like she’s the new kid on the block. "I don’t think so. Thanks." She desperately doesn’t want to leave, because she has a terrible feeling this is the last time she’ll ever feel his eyes on her.

She starts to turn, and he opens his mouth again. "If you ever need some work done – you know, on that carnival freak show you call a car – bring it down to the shop. No charge."

A little laugh bubbles up inside her and escapes her lips. "Actually, I’m bringing it down this week. That was part of the fee Veronica promised me. A free tune-up."

Weevil snorts. "Of course it was. The girl has some  _cojones_ , I’ll give her that."

"So I don’t get the tune-up?"

Weevil just looks at her for a moment. Then he lifts his hand and picks up her smaller one. She has no idea what he’s doing until he raises it to his lips and actually  _kisses_  the back of her fingers, like some freaking white knight. Murdering, drug-dealing, trash-talking knight on a Harley. He lets his lips linger there for a second, brushing, caressing, burning hot against the cool night air. Her breath stutters to a stop in her chest and her knees go a little weak. She can’t even think of what to say when he raises his eyes to her stunned expression.

"Bring it by Tuesday. I’ll make sure we take good care of it." His low voice is so tender that she barely recognizes it, and there’s an undercurrent of amusement at her shocked reaction. She watches him put his helmet on and take off down the road before turning back to the others.

Logan is gone, and Veronica, Wallace and Mark are staring at her with varying degrees of amusement, confusion, and concern.

"You bonded?" Veronica asks slyly. "I’m sensing some holes in the narrative."

Mac’s heart is trotting at twice the normal speed. She smiles a little giddily. "You’re the detective. You figure it out."

THE END

_Mac + Weevil 4 Evah!_


End file.
